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THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

ALEXANDER  F  MORRISON 


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THE     DOCTOR'S 
RECREATION    SERIES 


CHARLES  WELLS  MOULTON 

General  Editor 


VOLUME    EIGHT 


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DOCTORS   OF 


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OLE 


BEING  CUP 
Of  MEDIC: 
ANCIENT  PKA 


H.  RVEY  Demonstrating   to    Charl&s^^. 
^  His   The  or  1-  of  the   Circulatiqi^ 


THE 

Chicago 


DOCTORS   OF 

'  THE  — 


OLD  SCHOOL 


BEING  CURIOSITIES 
OF  MEDICINE  AND 
ANCIENT  PRACTISE 


ARRANGED  BY 

Porter  Davlcs,  /D.  H). 


1905 

THE  SAALFIELD  PUBLISHING  CO. 

Chicago  AKRON,  O.  New  York 


tuaammmmt 


Copyright,  1905, 

BY 

THE  SAALFIELD  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


MADE    Br 

THE    WERNER    COMPANY 

AKRON,    OHIO 


CONTENTS 


An  Old  Time  Doctor Alice  Morse  Earle. 

Curiosities  of  Ancient  Medicine Andrew   T.   Sibbald. 

Surgery  and  Superstition Frank  Rede  Fowke. 

The  Physician  in  Chaucer E.  E.  Morris, 

Medicine  and  Morals Isaac  Disraeli. 

Medicine  in  the  Dark  Ages Porter  Davies,  M.  D. 

Doctors  out  of  Practise John  Cordy  Jeaffreson. 

The  Profession  in  Early  American  Literature Samuel  L.  Knapp. 

Delusions  of  Medicine Professor  Henry  Draper, 

Some  Quacks Anonymous, 

The  Learned  Apothecary Porter  Davies,  M.  D, 

Old  English  Literature  and  Medicine L  Arthur  King. 

Medical  Accuracy  of  Charles  Dickens British  Medical  Journal. 

Old  Physicians J.  Rutherford  Russell,  M.  D. 

The  Discovery  of  Anaesthesia Henry  Smith  Williams. 

"The  Black  Death"  in  the  Fourteenth  Century 

William  Augustus  Guy,   M.  B. 

Royal  Deaths  from  Small-Pox British  Medical  Journal. 

Extraordinary  Surgical  Operations Irish  Quarterly  Review. 

Early  Surgeons Social  History  of  Southern  Countries. 

Remarkable  Instances  of  Contagion John  Timbs,  F".  S.  A. 

The  Plague  of  1665,  at  Eyam William  Augustus  Guy,  M.  B. 

Episodes  of  the  Great  Plague  of  London Henry  John  Stephen. 

Four  Thieves'  Vinegar William  Wadd. 

Arabs  and  the  Plague Andrew  Crichton. 

Capuchin    Recipe Stephen    Collet. 

The  Manufacture  of  Love  Charms Anonymous, 

The  Benefits  Derived  from  Alchemy Francis  (Lord)  Bacon. 

Surgeons :   exempt  from  serving  on  Juries 

Andrews's  History  of  England. 

Wiseacre— Physician Lemon's  Dictionary,  1783. 

Selling  One's  Body James  Brooke. 

Sanctorius  and  his  Chair John  Timbs,  F.  S.  A, 

"The  Oiariot  of  Antimony" John  Timbs,  F.  S,  A. 

Scottish   Characteristics Paxton  Hood. 

"Aristophanes  of  Medicine" Anonymous. 

The  Real  Sherlock  Holmes Anonymous, 


1— •   w.- 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page. 
William    Harvey   Demonstrating  to   Charles   I.    his   Theory  of 

the  Circulation  of  the  Blood Frontispiece 

Edward  Jenner 74 

The  Hypochondriac i6o 

Andrew  Vesalius,  The  Anatomist 222 


PREFACE 

The  Doctors  of  the  Old  School  is  a  work  prepared 
with  much  care,  and  brings  together  a  vast  fund  of  informa- 
tion from  various  sources  on  the  "curiosities  of  medicine  and 
ancient  practise."  A  number  of  original  articles,  by  the 
Editor  and  other  contributors,  appear  here  for  the  first  time. 

This  work  is  somewhat  similar  to  A  BOOK  ABOUT 
DOCTORS,  by  John  Cordy  Jeaflfreson,  and  contains  a  fur- 
ther contribution  by  that  author,  but  entirely  original  and 
distinct  from  his  former  publication. 

For  the  courtesy  of  using  articles  protected  by  a  copy- 
right, the  Editor  returns  thanks  to  Harper  and  Brothers,  D. 
Appleton  and  Company,  Nature,  Current  Literature,  Alice 
Morse  Earle,  and  Frank  Rede  Fowke. 

Porter  Davies,  M.  D. 

New  York,  December  20,  1904. 


\y 


AN  OLD  TIME  DOCTOR 

BY 

ALICE  MORSE  EARLE 


AN  OLD  TIME  DOCTOR 

LIKE  to  think  of  the  rich  and  pompous  old  doctor 
a-riding  out  to  see  his  patients,  clad  in  his  suit  of 
sober  brown  or  claret  color  with  great  shining  but- 
tons made  of  silver  coins.  The  full-skirted  coat 
had  great  pockets  and  flaps,  as  did  the  long  waistcoat  that 
reached  well  over  the  hips.  Rather  short  were  the  sleeves 
of  the  coat^  to  show  the  white  ruffles  and  frills  at  the  wrist ; 
but  the  forearm  was  well  protected  in  cold  weather  by  the 
long  gauntlets  of  his  riding-gloves  and  by  his  muffetees. 
Full  knee-breeches  dressed  his  shapely  legs,  while  fine  silk 
stockings  and  buckled  shoes  displayed  his  well-turned  calves 
and  ankles.  But  in  muddy  weather  high  leather  boots  took 
the  place  of  the  fine  hose  and  shoes,  and  his  handsome 
breeches  were  covered  with  long  tow  overalls,  or  "tongs," 
as  they  were  called.  On  his  head  the  doctor  wore  a  cocked 
hat  and  wig.  He  owned  and  wore  in  turn  wigs  of  different 
sizes  and  dignity — ties,  bags,  periwigs,  and  bobs.  His  por- 
trait was  painted  in  a  full-bottomed  wig  that  rivaled  the 
Lord  Chancellor's  in  size ;  but  his  every-day  riding-wig  was 
a  rather  commonplace  horsehair  affair  with  a  stiff  eelskin 
cue. 

One  wig  he  lost  by  a  mysterious  accident,  one  day,  while 
he  was  attending  a  patient  who  was  lying  ill  of  the  fever,  of 
which  the  crisis  seemed  at  hand.  The  doctor  decided  to  re- 
main all  night,  and  sat  down  by  the  side  of  a  table  in  the 
sick  man's  room.  The  hours  passed  slowly  away.  Physi- 
cian and  nurse  and  goodwife  talked  and  droned  on ;  the  sick 
man  moaned  and  tossed  in  his  bed,  and  begged  fruitlessly 
for  water.  At  last  the  room  grew  silent ;  the  tired  watchers 
dozed  in  their  chairs ;  the  doctor  nodded  and  nodded,  bring- 
ing his  eelskin  cue  dangerously  near  the  flame  of  the  candle 
that  stood  on  the  table.    Suddenly  there  was  heard  a  violent 


12         DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

explosion,  a  hiss,  a  sizzle ;  and  when  the  smoke  cleared,  and 
the  terrified  oocupints  of  the  room  collected  their  senses, 
.the  riurse  and  wife  were  discovered  under  the  valance  of  the 
•bed;  the  doctor  stood,  scorched  and  bareheaded,  looking  for 
his  wig;  while  the  sick  man,  who  had,  in  the  confusion, 
jumped  out  of  bed  and  captured  a  pitcher  of  water,  drunk 
half  the  contents  and  thrown  the  remainder  over  the  doc- 
tor's head,  was  lying  behind  the  bed-curtains  laughing  hys- 
terically at  the  ridiculous  appearance  of  the  man  of  medicine. 
Instant  death  was  predicted  for  the  invalid,  who,  strange  to 
say,  either  from  the  laughter  or  the  water,  began  to  recover 
from  that  moment. 

The  terrified  physician  was  uncertain  whether  he  ought  to 
attribute  the  explosion  and  conflagration  of  his  wig  to  a 
violent  demonstration  of  the  devil  in  his  effort  to  obtain 
possession  of  the  sick  man's  soul,  or  to  the  powerful  influ- 
ence of  some  conjunction  of  the  planets,  or  to  the  new- 
fangled power  of  electricity  which  Dr.  Franklin  had  just 
discovered,  and  was  making  so  much  talk  about,  and  was 
so  recklessly  tinkering  with  in  Philadelphia  at  that  very  time. 
The  doctor  had  strongly  disapproved  of  Franklin's  reprehen- 
sible and  meddlesome  boldness,  but  he  felt  that  it  was  best, 
nevertheless,  to  write  and  obtain  the  philosopher's  advice  as 
to  the  feasibility,  advisability,  and  best  convenience  of  hav- 
ing one  of  the  new  lightning-rods  rigged  upon  his  medical 
back,  and  running  thence  up  through  his  wig,  thus  warding 
oflf  further  alarming  accident.  Ere  this  was  done  the  mys- 
tery of  the  explosion  was  solved.  When  the  doctor's  new 
wig  arrived  from  Boston,  he  ordered  his  Indian  servant  to 
powder  it  well  ere  it  was  worn.  He  was  horrified  to  see 
Noantum  give  the  wig  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  gimpowder 
from  the  powder-horn,  instead  of  starch  from  the  dredging- 
box.  So  the  explosion  of  the  old  wig  was  no  longer  assigned 
to  diabolical,  thaumaturgical,  or  meteorological  influences. 


CURIOSITIES  OF  ANCIENT  MEDICINE 

BY 

ANDREW  T.  SIBBALD 


CURIOSITIES  OF  ANCIENT  MEDICINE 

EMARKABLE  for  their  ingenuity,  if  nothing  else, 
were  many  of  the  measures  resorted  to  by  our  fore- 
fathers in  routing  the  fell  demon  of  disease ;  and  to 
the  modern — and  therefore  enlightened — reader  an 
ancient  "medicine  book"  is  a  perfect  mine  of  curiosities,  in 
which  he  may  find  sense  and  nonsense,  ignorance  and  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  shrewdness,  blind  faith  and  barefaced  quack- 
ery, all  served  up  by  turns,  or,  it  may  be,  together.  The 
pharmacopoeia  of  our  ancestors  was  both  richer  and  poorer 
than  ours  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  former  rejoiced  in 
a  collection  of  "leechdoms,"  which  would  be  enough  to  make 
the  hair  of  any  modern  patient  stand  on  end,  and  give  the 
College  of  Physicians  the  shivers.  Where  science  halted  and 
medical  knowledge  looked  blank,  inventive  superstition 
stepped  boldly  to  the  front,  and  bade  this  charm  be  repeated 
for  an  ague,  and  that  one  for  a  broken  bone,  prescribed  a 
drink  of  herbs  and  holywater  for  a  fever,  and  the  wearing  of 
a  specified  amulet  for  the  gout. 

In  all  "cures"  resulting  from  those  mild  remedies,  faith 
was  no  doubt  the  most  active,  though  probably  the  unsus- 
pected agent.  It  certainly  speaks  volumes  for  the  constitu- 
tions of  our  forefathers  that  they  so  frequently  got  the  better 
of  their  ailments  in  spite  of  the  pranks  they  played  with 
themselves.  The  old  stock  was  apparently  after  the  pattern 
of  Joe  Bagstock,  "Tough,  sir,  devilish  tough."  We,  the 
descendants,  though  chips  of  the  self-same  block,  have  lost 
in  hardiness  what  we  have  perchance  gained  in  polish.  It 
was  not  only  to  the  sick  body,  but  also  to  the  mind  diseased, 
that  the  leeches  and  wise  women  of  bygone  days  attempted 
to  minister,  with  their  potions  and  their  nostrums.  With 
beautiful  impartiality  they  drew  no  hard  and  fast  lines  be- 


i6        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

tween  peevishness  and  palsy;  the  "vanities  of  the  heade," 
whatever  they  might  be^  and  the  disorders  of  the  liver ;  they 
were  as  ready  to  fix  you  up  with  something  good  against  the 
effects  of  witchcraft,  or  the  temptations  of  the  Evil  One,  as 
to  dose  you  for  the  measles,  or  to  teach  you  a  charm  to  dis- 
cover the  whereabouts  of  lost  cattle.  Magic  in  a  mild  form 
being  the  unknown  and  ungaugable  X  of  most  of  their  com- 
positions, it  was  as  easy  to  attempt  one  thing  as  another, 
the  result  being  in  all  cases  a  matter  of  chance. 

In  Cockaione's  "Saxon  Leechdoms,"  we  are  told  that 
Demokritos  wrote  of  an  herb,  the  root  of  which  "wrought 
into  pills  and  swallowed  in  wine,  would  make  guilty  men 
confess  everything,  tormented  at  night  by  strange  visions  of 
the  spirit  world."  What  an  herb  for  a  court  of  justice! 
What  a  stimulating  little  dose  for  a  criminal  likely  to  get 
off  for  want  of  evidence !  Then  Albertus  Magnus  brings  out 
the  heliotropion,  and  it  appears  that  the  heliotropion  is  also 
an  invaluable  herb,  good  for  defeating  the  ends  of  those  who 
go  "a-burgling."  "If  one  gather  it  in  August,"  says  Al- 
bertus, "and  wrap  it  up  in  a  bay  leaf  with  a  wolf's  tooth,  no 
one  can  speak  an  angry  word  to  the  wearer."  This  is  very 
good,  first-rate,  indeed,  but  that  is  not  all.  "Put  under  the 
pillow,  it" — that  is,  the  heliotropion — "will  bring  in  a  vision 
before  the  eyes  of  a  man  who  has  been  robbed,  the  thief,  and 
all  his  belongings."  Why,  oh  why,  when  jewel  robberies 
occur  so  often,  do  we  not  pay  more  attention  to  the  wonder- 
working heliotropion?  Betony,  we  are  told,  protects  a  man 
from  "monstrous  nocturnal  visitors  and  frightful  dreams" ; 
in  other  words,  it  keeps  away  nightmare.  It  also  prevents 
intoxication ;  so  also  does  an  omelette  made  from  the  ears 
of  the  long-eared  owl. 

Among  numberless  other  prescriptions  for  the  ague,  there 
is  one  which  declares  that  "the  little  animal  that  sits  and 
weaves  with  the  view  to  catch  flies,  tied  up  in  rag  round  the 
left  arm,"  is  to  be  recommended  as  a  certain  cure.  Flemish 
folk-lore,  on  the  other  hand,  dictates^  in  the  case  of  ague, 
an  early  morning  visit  to  an  ancient  willow-tree.  When 
there,  the  sufferer  must  tie  three  knots  in  one  of  its  branches 


CURIOSITIES  OF  ANCIENT  MEDICINE  17 

and  say :  "Good-morrow,  Old  One,  I  give  thee  the  cold ; 
good-morrow,  Old  One,"  upon  which  the  accommodating 
"Old  One"  relieves  the  patient  of  his  troublesome  complaint. 
The  somewhat  unchristian  doctrine  of  "pass  it  on  to  some- 
body else,"  is  noticeable  in  many  once  popular  charms.  To 
get  rid  of  warts,  a  good  plan  was  to  wrap  up  in  a  parcel  as 
many  grains  of  barley  as  there  were  warts  to  be  charmed 
away,  and  to  leave  it  on  the  public  road.  Whoever  found 
and  opened  the  parcel,  inherited  the  warts ;  a  "heritage  of 
woe"  in  this  instance.  Persons  bereft  of  their  senses  fared 
badly  in  the  so-called  good  old  times.  "In  case  a  man  be 
lunatic,"  says  a  cheerful  "leechdom,"  "take  skin  of  a  mere 
swine  or  porpoise,  work  it  up  into  a  whip,  swinge  the  man 
therewith,  soon  he  will  be  well.  Amen."  The  amen  gives 
a  peculiar  unctuousness  to  the  prescription.  Nor  was  the 
rod  of  benefit  to  lunatics  only,  for  the  Reverend  S.  Baring 
Gould  writes  of  a  German  physician,  of  1608,  who  appar- 
ently deemed  it  a  cure  for  pretty  nearly  every  sort  of  ill 
that  flesh  is  heir  to.  According  to  this  enthusiast  a  sound 
thrashing  was  better  than  any  patent  medicine  invented 
since  the  days  of  Noah.  It  "cleared  the  brain,  stirred  up 
the  stagnating  juices,  circulated  the  blood,  and  braced  the 
nerves,"  moreover,  for  the  melancholy  that  resulted  from 
love,  it  was  simply  the  cure.  What  would  the  sighing  Stre- 
phons  and  languishing  Adonises  of  the  nineteenth  century 
say  to  having  their  love-sickness  doctored  in  this  summary 
and  unsentimental  manner?  "Whip  him  well,"  remarks  the 
sage,  speaking  of  a  youth  "down"  with  the  amatory  com- 
plaint, "and  should  he  not  mend  keep  him  locked  up  in  the 
cellar  on  bread  and  water  until  he  promises  amendment." 
In  Swan's  "Speculum  Mundi"  we  also  come  across  some 
very  quaint  medical  conceits.  Feverfew,  we  learn,  is  good 
for  "such  as  be  sad,  pensive,  not  desiring  to  speak."  The 
herb  sowbred  is  a  capital  amorous  medicine,  and  will  cause 
you  to  fall  in  love,  while  as  has  just  been  observed,  a  judi- 
cious application  of  the  rod  will  make  you  fall  out    A  sly 


i8  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

waggishness  lurks  in  the  description  of  the  mustard,  and  the 
author  on  this  occasion  drops  into  poetry :  . 

She  that  hap  a  husband  bad  to  bury, 
And  is  therefore  in  heart  not  sad,  but  merry, 
Yet  if  in  shew  good  manners  she  would  keep, 
Onyons  and  mustard  seed  will  make  her  weep. 

It  would  be  a  shame  if  we  omitted  to  place  rosemary  on 
the  list  of  strange  and  wonder-working  herbs,  for,  indeed, 
the  virtues  of  rosemary  were  formerly  very  great,  although 
now  they  appear  to  have  fallen  into  abeyance.  The  ma- 
terialism of  this  century  has  certainly  much  to  answer  for. 
It  has  taken  away  our  charms  and  our  philters,  it  has  put 
to  flight  our  familiar  fairies,  and  dispersed  most,  if  not  all, 
our  hobgoblins ;  it  has  removed  the  ancient  landmarks  and 
dealt  a  deathblow  to  the  old  superstitions.  In  return  it  has 
given  us  what  a  well-known  writer  has  been  pleased  to 
designate  "machinery,"  by  which  he  means  a  vast  deal  more 
than  engines  and  things  with  wheels  that  "go  wound." 
However,  what  machinery  is  or  is  not,  has  nothing  to  do 
with  this  paper,  which  deals  merely  with  a  few  of  the  up- 
rooted landmarks ;  so  to  return  to  our  rosemary.  If  hung 
about  the  porch  and  doorposts  it  kept  away  thieves ;  but  its 
most  remarkable  property  consisted  in  making  old  folks 
young  again..  Precious,  precious  rosemary ;  could  you  but 
accomplish  that  now,  gold  of  Ophir  would  be  your  price! 

There  was  once — and  Galen  is  our  authority  for  this  story 
— a  gouty  and  crooked  old  queen,  who,  being  minded  to  re- 
cover her  lost  youth  and  beauty,  took  six  pounds  of  the 
magic  herb  and  ground  it  in  a  "stownde."  The  powder  thus 
obtained  was  mixed  with  the  water  in  which  she  bathed 
three  times  a  day,  and  the  result  was  that  she  became  so 
young  and  sprightly  that  instead  of  repenting  her  of  her 
sins,  and  considering  her  latter  end,  her  rejuvenated  majesty 
began  to  look  out  for  a  husband.  So  much  for  Galen  and  his 
rosemary.  Another  of  our  "common  or  garden"  plants 
which  has  lost  its  prestige  in  these  degenerate  times  is  the 
periwinkle.    Such  a  list  of  virtues  as  it  possessed,  too !    Not 


CURIOSITIES  OF  ANCIENT  MEDICINE  19 

only  was  it  "of  good  advantage"  against  evil  spirits,  snakes, 
wild  beasts,  poisons,  envy,  and  terror;  but  those  who  wore 
it  were  prosperous  and  ever  acceptable.  Truly  a  "consum- 
mation devoutly  to  be  wished!"  Prosperous  and  ever  ac- 
ceptable! Old  Herrick  could  never  have  known  this,  or 
surely  he  would  have  written : 

Gather  ye  periwinkles  while  ye  may; 
Old  Time  is  still  a-flying, 


SURGERY  AND  SUPERSTITION 

BY 

FRANK  REDE  FOWKE 


T 


SURGERY  AND  SUPERSTITION 

0  those  unversed  in  the  history  of  surgery  it  may 
come  as  a  surprise  that  many  of  the  appliances 
commonly  regarded  as  the  inventions  of  yesterday, 
are  but  the  perfected  forms  of  implements  long 
in  use.  It  is  astonishing  to  find  among  the  small  bronzes 
of  the  National  Museum  at  Naples,  bistouries,  forceps,  cup- 
ping-vessels, trochars  for  tapping,  bivalvular  and  trivalvular 
specula,  an  elevator  for  raising  depressed  portions  of  the 
skull,  and  other  instruments  of  advanced  construction  which 
differ  but  little  from  their  modern  congeners.  The  invention 
of  such  instruments,  and  the  skill  displayed  in  their  con- 
struction, presupposes  a  long  period  of  surgical  practise.  We 
find,  accordingly,  that  four  hundred  years  before  our  era, 
Hippocrates  was  performing  numerous  operations  bold  to 
the  verge  of  recklessness.  Thus  he  was  accustomed  to  em- 
ploy the  trepan,  not  only  in  depression  of  the  skull  or  for 
similar  accidents,  but  also  in  cases  of  headache  and  other 
affections  to  which^  according  to  our  ideas,  the  process  was 
singularly  inapplicable.  Strangely  enough,  the  Monteneg- 
rins are,  or  recently  were,  accustomed  to  get  themselves 
trepanned  for  similar  trifling  ailments,  and  it  is  probable 
that  in  both  instances  the  procedure  was  but  the  surviving 
custom  of  primeval  ages. 

That  such  operations  were  then  performed  Dr.  Robert 
Munro,  in  an  admirable  article  upon  prehistoric  trepanning, 
conclusively  shows.  His  paper  records  a  strange  blending  of 
the  sciences  of  medicine  and  theology  in  their  initial  stages ; 
for,  while  he  makes  it  clear  that  during  the  Neolithic  period 
a  surgical  operation  was  practised  (chiefly  on  children) 
which  consisted  in  making  an  opening  through  the  skull  for 
the  treatment  of  certain  internal  maladies,  he  renders  it 
equally  evident  that  the  skulls  of  those  individuals  who  sur- 


24  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

vived  the  ordeal  were  considered  as  possessed  of  particular 
mystic  properties.  And  he  shows  that  when  such  individuals 
died  fragments  were  often  cut  from  their  skulls,  which  were 
used  as  amulets — a  preference  being  given  to  such  as  were 
cut  from  the  margin  of  the  cicatrized  opening. 

The  discovery  arose  as  follows:  In  the  year  1873  Dr. 
Prunieres  exhibited  to  the  French  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science  an  oval  cut  from  a  human  parietal 
bone,  which  he  had  discovered  in  a  dolmen  near  Marvejols, 
embedded  in  a  skull  to  which  it  had  not  originally  belonged. 
His  suggestion  that  it  was  an  amulet  was  confirmed  on  the 
discovery  of  similar  fragments  of  bone  grooved  or  perfo- 
rated to  facilitate  suspension.  When  Dr.  Prunieres'  collec- 
tion was  examined  by  Dr.  Paul  Broca,  he  pointed  out  that 
that  portion  of  the  margin  of  the  bone  which  had  been  de- 
scribed as  "polished"  owed  its  texture  to  cicatricial  deposits 
in  the  living  body,  and  that,  where  these  were  wanting, 
death  had  ensued  before  the  pathological  action  was  set  up, 
or  the  operation  had  been  post-mortem.  These  discoveries 
led  to  widespread  investigation,  and  to  the  production  of 
trepanned  skulls  from  Peru,  from  North  America,  and  from 
nearly  every  country  of  Europe.  These  were  not  restricted 
to  any  particular  race  or  period,  but  ranged  from  the  earliest 
Neolithic  age  to  historic  times,  and  included  skulls  of  dolicho- 
cephalic and  brachycephalic  types.  The  method  of  conduct- 
ing the  operation  appears  to  have  been  to  gradually  scrape 
the  skull  with  a  sharp  flint,  though  there  is  occasional  evi- 
dence of  its  use  in  a  sawing  manner,  such  as  obtained  when 
the  ruder  implement  was  superseded  by  one  of  metal.  The 
process  was  almost  exclusively  practised  upon  children,  prob- 
ably on  account  of  the  facility  with  which  it  could  then  be 
accomplished,  and  possibly  also  as  an  early  precaution  against 
those  evils  for  which  it  was  esteemed  a  prophylactic.  What 
the  dreaded  evils  were  was  suggested  by  Dr.  Broca,  who, 
while  he  believed  that  the  operation  was  primarily  conducted 
for  therapeutic  purposes,  saw  behind  these  the  apprehension 
of  a  supernatural  or  demoniacal  influence.  Readers  of 
Lenormant's  "Chaldean  Magic"  will  remember  "the  wicked 


SURGERY  AND  SUPERSTITION  25 

demon  which  seizes  the  body,  which  disturbs  the  body,"  and 
that  "the  disease  of  the  forehead  proceeds  from  the  infernal 
regions,  it  is  come  from  the  dwelHng  of  the  lord  of  the 
abyss."  With  such  an  antiquated  record  before  us  it  is, 
therefore,  by  no  means  an  extravagant  theory  to  broach,  as 
Dr.  Broca  has  done,  that  many  of  the  convulsions  of  child- 
hood, which  disappear  in  adult  life,  were  regarded  as  the 
result  of  demoniacal  possession.  This  being  granted,  what 
more  natural  than  to  assist  the  escape  of  the  imprisoned 
spirit  by  boring  a  hole  in  the  skull  which  formed  his  prison. 
When  a  patient  survived  the  operation,  he  became  a  living 
witness  to  the  conquest  of  a  fiend,  and  it  is  comprehensible 
that  a  fragment  of  his  skull,  taken  after  death  from  the  very 
aperture  which  had  furnished  the  exit,  would  constitute  a 
powerful  talisman. 

Chaldean  demons,  as  we  know,  fled  from  representatives 
of  their  own  hideous  forms,  and,  if  they  were  so  sensitive 
on  the  score  of  personal  appearance,  others  may  have 
dreaded  with  equal  keenness  the  tangible  record  of  a  previous 
defeat.  It  is  certain  that  to  cranial  bones  medicinal  prop- 
erties were  ascribed — a  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  which  per- 
sisted to  the  dawn  of  the  eighteenth  century;  while,  in 
recent  years,  such  osseous  relics  were  worn  by  aged  Italians 
as  charms  against  epilepsy  and  other  nervous  diseases. 
When  once  the  dogma  was  promulgated  that  sanctity  and  a 
perforated  skull  were  correlated,  fond  relatives  might  bore 
the  heads  of  the  departed  to  facilitate  the  exodus  of  any 
malignant  influence  still  lingering  within,  and  to  ensure 
them,  by  the  venerated  aperture,  a  satisfactory  position  in 
their  new  existence.  For  similar  reasons  the  bone  amulet 
was  buried  with  the  deceased,  and  sometimes  it  was  even 
placed  within  his  skull. 

Dr.  Munro  considers  it  hard  to  say  for  what  purpose  such 
an  insertion  should  have  been  made,  but,  arguing  from  his 
data,  the  practise  does  not  appear  to  me  difficult  of  explana- 
tion. He  has  shown  that  disease  was  the  work  of  a  demon 
imprisoned  in  the  skull ;  that  this  demon  was  expelled 
through  the  trepanned  hole ;  and  that  its  margins  were  thus 


26  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

sanctified  for  talismanic  purposes.  The  unclean  spirit  was 
gone  out  of  the  man,  and  observation  showed  that,  during 
the  man's  earthly  existence,  he  did  not  return;  but  what 
guarantee  was  there  that  in  the  dim  unknown  region  to 
which  the  deceased  was  passing  the  assaults  of  the  evil  one 
might  not  be  renewed,  that  he  might  not  return  to  his  house 
whence  he  came  out,  and,  with  or  without  other  spirits  more 
wicked  than  himself,  enter  in  and  dwell  in  the  swept  and 
garnished  abode?  Surely,  with  such  a  possibility  before 
them,  it  was  the  duty  of  pious  mourners  to  offer  all  the  pro- 
tection that  religion  could  suggest,  and  to  defend  the  cita- 
del with  that  potent  amulet  which  recorded  the  previous  dis- 
comforture  of  the  besieger.  The  post-mortem  trepanning 
may  have  been  such  a  pious  endeavor  to  carry  sacramental 
benefits  beyond  the  grave  as  induced  the  early  Christians  to 
be  baptized  for  the  dead,  and  if  there  be  truth  in  the  deduc- 
tions which  have  been  made  from  the  evidence,  they  point  not 
only  to  a  belief  in  the  supernatural  and  in  the  existence  of 
a  future  state,  but  also  to  that  pathetic  struggle  of  human 
love  to  penetrate  the  kingdom  of  death,  which  has  persisted 
from  the  death  of  "Cain,  the  first  male  child,  to  him  that  did 
but  yesterday  suspire."  The  possibility  of  reasonably  mak- 
ing such  deductions  from  a  few  decayed  bones  is  a  remark- 
able proof  of  the  progress  of  anthropological  science. 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  CHAUCER 


BY 

E.  E.  MORRIS 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  CHAUCER* 


N 


OWHERE  is  there  such  a  moving  and  lifelike  pan- 
orama of  the  various  classes  of  bygone  days  as  in 
Chaucer's  Prologue.  More  attention  has  been  paid 
to  the  figures  of  other  of  the  pilgrims  to  Canter- 
bury, but  the  physician  is  well  worthy  of  attention.  Amongst 
the  pilgrims  there  are  only  eight  of  whom  the  poet  gives  a 
longer  account.  The  thirty-four  lines  that  describe  the  phy- 
sician tell  us  of  his  dress,  his  studies,  and  something  of  the 
nature  of  his  treatment.  In  all  these  matters,  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  add,  the  fourteenth-century  doctor  is  widely  differ- 
ent from  any  medical  man  of  the  present  day. 

Chaucer's  language  is  not  difficult  to  follow.  He  calls 
the  physician  a  "doctour  of  phisyk."  Thus  early  had  the 
word  doctor,  originally  teacher,  gained  its  modern  popular 
meaning ;  thus  early  had  "physic"  been  narrowed  down  from 
the  science  of  nature  to  the  meaning  of  a  remedy  for  disease. 
Macbeth's  "throw  physic  to  the  dogs"  has  the  sound  of  a 
modern  wish.  In  one  form  of  a  word  Chaucer's  use  is  bet- 
ter than  our  own.  "Practisour"  is  surely  shapelier  than  our 
"practitioner"  with  its  double  determination. 

The  physician's  line  of  study  is  more  remarkable  in  that 
he  lived  before  the  invention  of  printing.  The  mass  of  man- 
uscript that  he  must  have  waded  through  is,  however,  di- 
minished by  the  fact  that  some  at  least  of  the  authorities  left 
no  works  behind  them  for  posterity  to  study.  We  are  not 
told  where  the  physician  was  educated,  nor  whether  he  had 
taken  his  degree  of  Doctor  in  one  of  the  universities;  but 
we  are  definitely  informed  that  he  "knew  well"  no  fewer 
than  fifteen  authors.  Nearly  half  of  them  were  Arabian, 
five  were  Greek,  two  were  English,  and  one  was  a  Scotch- 
man.   The  large  Arabian  element  is  that  which  most  sur- 

*  See  "The  Doctor's  Window,"  page  130. 


30  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

prises  a  modern  reader,  unless  he  knows  his  Gibbon  and 
is  aware  how  much  of  mediaeval  learning  came  from  the 
race  of  the  Arabs  and  the  disciples  of  Mohammed.  The  de- 
scendants of  men  who  burnt  the  library  of  Alexandria  were 
the  preservers  of  much  learning  for  the  after-time  as  even 
the  first  syllable  of  the  words  algebra,  alchemy,  and  alembic 
may  serve  to  teach. 

The  order  of  the  fifteen  names  of  Chaucer's  list  is  mainly 
historical — first  the  Greeks,  then  the  Arabs,  then  the  more 
modern  men.  Inside  these  divisions  the  order  is  decided  by 
considerations  of  rhythm  or  rhyme,  ^sculapius  heads  the 
list  and  the  physician  would  have  found  some  difficulty  to 
know  his  works,  for  he  left  none  if  indeed  he  ever  existed. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  his  name  may  have  been  borrowed 
for  some  treatise  on  medicine  not  now  extant,  but  this  is  to 
enter  the  large  and  fertile  but  unsatisfactory  field  of  conjec- 
ture. Hippocrates  the  Great — his  name  corrupted  in  the 
middle  ages  to  Ypocras,  and  then  used  also  for  the  name 
of  a  cunningly  compounded  drink — belongs  to  the  fifth  and 
fourth  centuries  before  Christ.  His  treatises  are  the  earli- 
est extant  upon  medicine.  Dioscorides,  a  writer  on  materia 
medica,  chiefly  herbs,  is  the  earliest  after  the  Christian  era. 
Galen  and  Rufus  also  belonged  to  the  second  century,  living 
in  the  palmy  days  of  the  Roman  Empire,  when  the  model 
Emperor  Trajan  was  master  of  the  world.  Rufus  was  of 
Ephesus  and  wrote  on  the  names  of  the  parts  of  the  human 
body.  Galen — spelt  in  the  middle  ages  Galien — was  prob- 
ably the  most  eminent  of  all  on  the  list.  His  works  are  not 
studied  now,  except  for  the  history  of  medicine,  but  in  their 
pages  Chaucer's  physician  had  a  treasury  of  knowledge.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  medical  science  made  much  advance 
from  the  second  to  the  fourteenth  century,  from  Galen's  to 
Chaucer's  time.  It  is  now  its  proud  boast  that  during  the 
last  fifty  years  it  has  made  a  greater  advance  than  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 

In  the  list  of  the  Arabian  authorities  Chaucer  has  pre- 
served no  order.     When  Greek  learning  became  pedantry, 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  CHAUCER  31 

the  torch  of  medical  learning  kindled  at  the  last  of  the  Greek 
schools  was  kept  alight  at  Damascus  and  Bagdad.  John  of 
Damascus  represents  the  one ;  and  Rhazes,  a  great  authority 
on  small-pox,  the  other.  Both  belong  to  the  ninth  century. 
Next  comes  three  eleventh-century  men — Avicenna  (born  at 
Bokhara),  Haly,  and  Serapion.  Averroes  (born  in  Cor- 
dova) is  of  the  twelfth.  Haly  is  Alhazen,  a  Persian  author 
of  a  medical  treatise  known  as  the  Royal  Book,  but  more 
famous  for  its  knowledge  and  discoveries  in  astronomy ;  i.  e., 
astrology ;  but  Chaucer's  physician  recognizes  a  close  con- 
nection between  star-lore  and  the  healing  craft.  Indeed 
several  of  the  six  were  not  specially  distinguished  as  physi- 
cians, but  as  m.en  of  wide  learning.  They  were  philosophers, 
with  or  without  the  special  meaning  of  alchemist  that  Chau- 
cer and  his  contemporaries  attach  to  the  word.  Avicenna 
was  a  commentator  upon  Aristotle,  and  Averroes  upon  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  Of  the  two,  Averroes  had  the  greater  influ- 
ence as  a  philosopher,  Avicenna  as  a  writer  on  medicine. 
Mediaeval  students  learnt  Greek  philosophy  through  Latin 
versions  of  Arabic  versions  of  the  original.  Avicenna's 
book  was  the  "Canon  of  Medicine,"  a  text-book  of  medical 
study  in  the  European  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages.  No 
doubt  the  physician  read  all  these  books  in  Latin :  in  his  time 
Greek  was  never  studied,  much  less  Arabic.  Serapion  is  a 
Greek  name  and  it  was  that  of  a  famous  physician  living 
long  before  the  time  of  Christ,  an  Alexandrine  Greek  who 
wrote  against  Hippocrates.  His  works,  however,  are  not  ex- 
tant, and  it  is  more  likely  that  the  reference  is  to  one  of  two 
Arab  physicians  of  the  name,  who  probably  assumed  it 
because  of  its  ancient  renown ;  but  they  belonged  to  the 
eleventh  century.  Constantyn  is  Constantius  Afer,  a  native 
of  Carthage  and  probably  of  Arab  origin,  but  a  Christian 
monk,  who  left  Carthage  and  became  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  famous  medical  school  at  Salerno  in  Italy.  Salerno 
may  be  said  to  have  owed  its  greatness  to  the  fact  that  the 
Saracens  brought  Arab  medical  learning  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean.    In  the  Merchant's  Tale  Chaucer  quotes  from  a 


32        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

work  by  Constantius  on  a  strictly  medical  subject,  calling 
him  "the  cursed  monk  Don  Constantyn." 

The  last  three  mentioned  by  Chaucer  lived  nearer  to  his 
own  time.  Gilbertyn  is  Gilbertus  Anglicus,  Gilbert  the  Eng- 
lishman, who  wrote  his  "Compendium  Medicinse"  at  some 
time  after  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Bernard 
Gordon  was  a  Scot,  who  became  Professor  of  Medicine  at 
Montpellier,  fully  a  century  and  a  half  before  Rabelais  took 
his  thirst  for  learning  and  his  love  of  fun  to  that  renowned 
medical  school.  John  of  Gaddesden^  of  Merton  College, 
Oxford,  belongs  to  the  generation  just  before  Chaucer's, 
dying  in  1361.  He  is  usually  described  as  Court  Physician 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  II.  He  certainly  had  a  large  Lon- 
don practise,  and  once  treated  the  King's  brother  for  small- 
pox. If  the  anti-vaccination  folk  win  the  day,  small-pox  may 
again  be  prevalent,  so  Gaddesden's  treatment  should  be 
noted.  He  wrapped  the  royal  patient  "in  scarlet  cloyth,  in 
a  bed  and  room  with  scarlet  hangings"  and  the  result  was 
that  not  a  trace  of  the  malady  was  left  behind.  This  quota- 
tion was  taken  from  Gaddesden's  latest  biography.  Dr. 
Norman  Moore,  in  the  "Dictionary  of  National  Biography," 
says  that  his  book  called  "Rosa  Medicinae,"  often  called 
"Rosa  Anglica,"  is  "crammed  with  quotations  from  .  .  ." 
and  then  follows  a  list  almost  identical  with  Chaucer's.  The 
book  begins  with  an  account  of  fevers  based  on  Galen's  ar- 
rangement; then  goes  through  disease  and  injuries,  begin- 
ning with  the  head ;  and  ends  with  an  anttdotarium  or  treatise 
on  remedies.  It  contains  some  remarks  on  cooking,  and  in- 
numerable prescriptions^  many  of  which  are  superstitious 
while  others  prove  to  be  common-sense  remedies  when  care- 
fully considered.  Thus,  the  seal-skin  girdle  with  whale- 
bone buckle  which  he  recommends  for  colic  is  no  more  than 
the  modem  and  useful  cholera  belt  of  flannel.  He  cared 
for  his  gains,  and  boasts  of  getting  a  large  price  from  the 
Barber  Surgeon's  Guild  for  a  prescription  for  which  the 
chief  ingredient  is  tree  frogs.  His  disposition,  his  peculiari- 
ties, and  his  reading  are  so  precisely  those  of  the  Doctour  of 
Phisyk  in  Chaucer's  Prologue  that  it  seems  possible  that 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  CHAUCER  33 

Gaddesden  is  described,  and  in  the  smaller  London  of  those 
days  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  he  might  have  met  the 
eminent  doctor,  and  remembered  his  peculiarities. 

If  Chaucer's  physician  digested  all  this  varied  mass  of 
learning,  let  us  see  what  use  he  made  of  it.  Astrology 
formed  one  basis  of  his  treatment.  He  watched  the  sky  for 
a  favorable  star  or  stars  to  be  in  the  ascendant,  then  he  made 
an  image  of  his  patient.  If  this  image  were  made  at  a  sea- 
son astrologically  propitious,  it  was  thought  treatment  of 
the  image  helped  the  patient  through  magic.  It  may  be 
wondered  to  what  extent  the  doctors  believed  in  cures 
being  eflfected  through  this  magic  treatment  by  proxy,  or 
whether  it  was  a  way  to  leave  Nature  to  work  out  her  own 
cure.  This  doctor,  however,  by  no  means  relied  solely  on 
astrology  to  help  him  in  medicine  and  surgery.  Chaucer 
says  that  he  knew  the  cause  of  every  malady,  and  attacked 
the  root  of  the  mischief.  What  more  could  be  desired  ?  His 
diagnosis  of  the  cause  referred  it  to  what  were  called 
the  "elements  or  to  the  humors."  Each  of  these  composed 
a  set  of  four :  Cold,  hot,  moist,  and  dry ;  black  bile,  yellow 
bile,  blood,  and  phlegm.  Chaucer  mentions  the  former  by 
name,  but  he  does  not  detail  the  latter:  they  were  too  well 
known.  This  famous  theory  of  the  humors  is  very  old, 
probably  dating  from  Hippocrates,  and  certainly  systema- 
tized by  Galen.  The  Latin  humor  means  moisture,  fluid. 
The  ancients  believed  that  these  four  humors  or  fluids  were 
present  in  every  man ;  and  that  his  temperament,  temper, 
idiosyncrasy,  complexion  depended  on  the  way  in  which  the 
humors  were  mixed.  If  the  mixture  was  equal,  he  was  said 
to  be  good-tempered  or  good-humored;  but  if  any  one  of 
the  four  was  in  excess  the  temper  was  decided  thereby.  If 
black  bile,  he  was  atrabilious,  or  melancholy;  if  the  other 
bile,  he  was  choleric ;  if  blood,  he  was  sanguine ;  if  phlegm, 
he  was  phlegmatic.  This  is  not  only  an  explanation  of  a 
cluster  of  modern  English  words,  but  throws  light  on  many 
a  passage  of  our  literature.  "Distemper"  we  still  say  of  a 
dog's  ailment.  Our  ancestors  applied  the  word  to  human 
beings  likewise. 


34  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Once  the  diagnosis  made,  the  physician  was  able  to  pre- 
scribe, and  to  give  the  sick  man  his  remedy — his  boote,  that 
which  makes  better.  These  are  mostly  herbal,  and  made  up 
in  two  forms,  dragges  or  drugs,  and  letiiaries  or  electuaries. 
The  former  word  is  by  many  connected  with  dry,  and  seems 
to  be  used  of  some  form  of  powder;  whilst  the  latter  is 
something  to  be  licked.  Both  imply  that  the  medicine  was 
made  up  in  a  pleasant  form,  like  the  powder  in  the  jam  in 
nursery  days.  The  word  "drug"  nowadays  suggests  an  un- 
pleasant medicine,  but  Skeat  quotes  from  Cotgrave's  "Dic- 
tionary," published  in  the  Restoration  year,  1660:  "Dragee, 
a  kind  of  digestive  powder  prescribed  into  weak  stomachs 
after  meat,"  (that  is,  after  food,  not  necessarily  flesh),  and 
hence  any  jonkets,  comfits,  or  sweetmeats  served  in  the  last 
course  for  stomach-closers.  The  modem  French  dragee  is  a 
sugar-plum,  a  word  conveying  a  different  meaning  from  its 
English  congener  drug.  Fifty  years  ago  medicines  (the 
black  dose!  ugh !)  were  nastier  than  they  are  now;  and  yet 
the  mediaeval  notion  that  drugs  should  be  sweetmeats  might 
to  some  extent  be  reintroduced  with  advantage.  Then  as  now 
the  medicine  came  from  the  chemist,  though  he  was  always 
called  the  apothecary.  The  first  meaning  of  the  word  chem- 
ist was  alchemist ;  and  its  modern  use  a  little  awkward,  the 
scientific  investigator  being  called  by  the  same  name  as  the 
dispenser  of  medicines.  In  the  United  States  this  confusion 
is  unknown,  for  there  the  latter  is  always  called  a  "druggist." 
Chaucer  accuses  the  physician  and  the  chemist  of  playing 
into  each  other's  hands — a  practise  expressly  forbidden  by 
the  laws  of  some  of  the  modern  medical  colleges.  "How  ?" 
asks  the  innocent.  The  doctor  would  prescribe  expensive 
remedies  from  which  the  chemist  would  reap  a  large  profit, 
and  in  return  he  would  recommend  patients  to  visit  the 
obliging  doctor.    Let  us  hope  the  accusation  was  a  libel. 

Chaucer  proceeds  to  tell  us  that  this  physician  looked  after 
himself,  that  he  was  particular  as  to  his  own  diet,  that  he  did 
not  eat  much,  but  that  what  he  ate  was  right  nourishing  food 
and  easily  digested.  During  the  Crimean  War  an  attempt 
was  made  to  feed  soldiers  on  food  that  would  pack  into 


THE  PHYSICIAN  IN  CHAUCER.  35 

small  compass,  but  it  was  found  that  the  human  body  re- 
quires to  be  filled,  as  well  as  nourished ;  a  continued  course 
of  small  quantities  of  very  nourishing  food  left  a  vacuum 
such  as  Nature  abhors.  Incidentally,  Chaucer  mentions  that 
the  study  of  the  physician  was  "but  little  on  the  Bible."  This 
comes  as  a  surprise  to  those  who  thought  that  Protestantism 
first  introduced  the  Bible  amongst  the  laity.  There  is  a 
truly  modern  flavor  about  the  jibe.  Next  the  appearance  of 
the  doctor  is  described.  He  was  "clad  in  sanguin  and  in 
pers."  Modern  times  have  indeed  taken  much  of  the  pic- 
turesque out  of  ordinary  life,  especially  the  color  out  of  the 
garments  of  the  men.  The  pilgrims  traveling  Canterbury- 
wards  wore  distinctive  garbs.  Even  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, to  judge  from  pictures  of  Tonbridge  Wells,  costume  dif- 
ferentiated man  from  man  in  a  way  that  has  quite  ceased. 
This  doctor  rode  in  the  party  arrayed  in  cloth  of  blood-red 
and  of  the  color  of  peach-blossom.  It  must  have  looked  rich 
and  handsome.  Even  the  lining  is  mentioned :  it  was  of 
taffeta  and  sendal,  that  is  a  rich  thin  silk.  But  for  fear  lest 
it  should  be  thought  that  this  gay  apparel  denoted  extrava- 
gance, our  poet  adds  that  the  physician  was  moderate  in  his 
expenditure.  No  spendthrift,  he  kept  what  he  had  fairly 
earned  during  the  pestilences  that  scourged  England  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  of  which  the  Black  Death  was  the  most 
deadly  and  the  best  remembered.  At  that  time  the  doctor 
made  money  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  not  as  the 
alchemists  professed  to  make  gold.  Gold  formed  part  of  the 
mediaeval  pharmacopasia.  Dr.  Skeat  refers  to  various  au- 
thorities that  show  that  aurum  potabile  was  a  medicine  made 
in  some  way  from  gold,  either  by  boiling  the  gold  in  oil 
and  then  using  the  oil,  or  else  by  actually  melting  down  some 
small  portion  of  the  gold  itself.  This  remedy  was  held  in 
high  honor  among  the  alchemists,  who  (it  must  be  remem- 
bered) sought  the  panacea  cure  for  all  ailments  that  flesh  is 
heir  to,  or  the  elixir  of  life,  as  well  as  the  philosopher's  stone 
that  would  turn  baser  metals  into  gold.  Strangely  enough, 
it  was  believed  that  the  same  substance  would  fulfil  the 
double  purpose.    With  a  sly  hit  at  the  value  attached  by  the 


36  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

doctor  to  gold  upon  purely  professional  grounds,  Chaucer 
lets  him  pass  from  under  the  poetic  scalpel. 

Besides  the  account  of  the  Prologue,  Chaucer  frequently 
gives  a  second  and  shorter  account  of  the  chief  tale-tellers 
when  the  turn  for  their  story  arrives.  In  the  case  of  the 
physician,  however,  there  is  a  gap — the  second  in  the  whole 
of  the  "Canterbury  Tales" — just  when  the  physician  is  called 
upon.  The  "head-link"  is  missing.  The  Physician's  Tale 
is  the  old  story  of  Virginia,  originally  from  Livy^  but  taken 
by  Chaucer  from  the  "Roman  de  la  Rose."  At  the  end 
Harry  Bailly,  the  host,  as  the  presiding  genius  of  the  story- 
telling, utters  some  eulogy  of  the  teller^  whilst  he  indulges  in 
some  banter  about  the  sadness  of  the  story.  He  was  so 
distressed  by  it  that  (how  modern!)  he  would  like  a  drink 
after  it.  The  praise  of  the  doctor  is  contained  in  the  words 
"thou  art  a  proper  man,  and  lyk  a  prelat!" — (Gaddesden 
was  a  priest),  to  be  made  a  bishop  or  a  mitred  abbot.  It 
sounds  a  little  strange  to  the  modern  ear  that  the  host  wanted 
"treacle."  It  was  not  as  a  vehicle  for  brimstone  that  he 
wanted  it. 

Treacle  has  changed  its  meaning.  Originally  an  antidote 
against  the  bite  of  a  wild  animal,  it  came  to  mean  a  medicine, 
and  later  the  favorite  vehicle  for  medicine.  The  host  of  his 
chaff  says  that  he  has  been  so  grievously  harrowed  by  the 
story  that  he  has  developed  heart-disease :  "Please  give  me 
some  medicine.  Perhaps  a  draught  of  moyste  and  corny  ale 
would  do ;  or  a  really  funny  story  might  serve  as  the  needed 
medicine."  Thus  the  host  passes  from  the  physician;  and 
the  pardoner  is  called  upon  next  for  his  story. 


MEDICINE  AND  MORALS 

BY 

ISAAC  DISRAELI 


MEDICINE  AND  MORALS 


j^  1  STROKE  of  personal  ridicule  is  leveled  at  Dryden, 
^^^  when  Bayes  informs  us  of  his  preparations  for  a 
course  of  study  by  a  course  of  medicine!  "When 
I  have  a  grand  design,"  says  he,  "I  ever  take  phy- 
sic and  let  blood ;  for  when  you  would  have  pure  swiftness 
of  thought,  and  fiery  flights  of  fancy,  you  must  have  a  care 
of  the  pensive  part ;  in  fine,  you  must  purge  the  belly !"  Such 
was  really  the  practise  of  the  poet,  as  La  Motte,  who  was  a 
physician,  informs  us,  and  in  his  medical  character  did  not 
perceive  that  ridicule  in  the  subject  which  the  wits  and  most 
readers  unquestionably  have  enjoyed.  The  wits  here  were 
as  cruel  against  truth  as  against  Dryden ;  for  we  must  still 
consider  this  practise,  to  use  their  own  words,  as  "an  excel- 
lent recipe  for  writing."  Among  other  philosophers,  one 
of  the  most  famous  disputants  of  antiquity,  Carneades,  was 
accustomed  to  take  copious  doses  of  white  hellebore,  a  great 
aperient,  as  a  preparation  to  refute  the  dogmas  of  the  Stoics. 
"The  thing  that  gives  me  the  highest  spirits  (it  seems  ab- 
surd but  true)  is  a  dose  of  salts ;  but  one  can't  take  them 
like  champagne,"  said  Lord  Byron.  Dryden's  practise  was 
neither  whimsical  nor  peculiar  to  the  poet ;  he  was  of  a  full 
habit,  and,  no  doubt,  had  often  found  by  experience  the 
beneficial  effects  without  being  aware  of  the  cause,  which 
is  nothing  less  than  the  reciprocal  influence  of  mind  and 
body. 

This  simple  fact  is,  indeed,  connected  with  one  of  the 
most  important  inquiries  in  the  history  of  man — the  laws 
which  regulate  the  invisible  union  of  the  soul  with  the  body : 
in  a  word,  the  inscrutable  mystery  of  our  being! — a  secret, 
but  an  undoubted  intercourse,  which  probably  must  ever 
elude  our  perceptions.  The  combinations  of  metaphysics 
with  physics  has  only  been  productive  of  the  wildest  fairy 


40  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

tales  among  philosophers ;  with  one  party  the  soul  seems  to 
pass  away  in  its  last  puff  of  air,  while  man  seems  to  perish 
in  "dust  to  dust" ;  the  other  as  successfully  gets  rid  of  our 
bodies  altogether,  by  denying  the  existence  of  matter.  We 
are  not  certain  that  mind  and  matter  are  distinct  existences, 
since  the  one  may  be  only  a  modification  of  the  other ;  how- 
ever this  great  mystery  be  imagined,  we  shall  find  with  Dr. 
Gregory,  in  his  lectures  "on  the  duties  and  qualifications  of  a 
physician,"  that  it  forms  an  equally  necessary  inquiry  in  the 
sciences  of  morals  and  of  medicine. 

Whether  we  consider  the  vulgar  distinction  of  mind  and 
body  as  a  union,  or  as  a  modified  existence,  no  philosopher 
denies  that  a  reciprocal  action  takes  place  between  our  moral 
and  physical  condition.  Of  these  sympathies,  like  many  other 
mysteries  of  nature,  the  cause  remains  occult  while  the 
effects  are  obvious.  This  close  yet  inscrutable  association, 
this  concealed  correspondence  of  parts  seemingly  uncon- 
nected, in  a  word,  this  reciprocal  influence  of  the  mind  and 
the  body,  has  long  fixed  the  attention  of  medical  and  meta- 
physical inquirers ;  the  one  having  the  care  of  our  exterior 
organization,  the  other  that  of  the  interior.  Can  we  conceive 
the  mysterious  inhabitant  as  forming  a  part  of  its  own  habi- 
tation? The  tenant  and  the  house  are  so  inseparable,  that 
in  striking  at  any  part  of  the  dwelling,  you  inevitably  reach 
the  dweller.  If  the  mind  be  disordered,  we  may  often  look 
for  its  seat  in  some  corporal  derangement.  Often  are  our 
thoughts  disturbed  by  a  strange  irritability,  which  we  do  not 
even  pretend  to  account  for.  This  state  of  the  body,  called 
the  fidgets,  is  a  disorder  to  which  the  ladies  are  particularly 
liable.  A  physician  of  my  acquaintance  was  earnestly  en- 
treated by  a  female  patient  to  give  a  name  to  her  unknown 
complaints  ;  this  he  found  no  difficulty  to  do,  as  he  is  a  sturdy 
assertor  of  the  materiality  of  our  nature ;  he  declared  that  her 
disorder  was  atmospherical.  It  was  the  disorder  of  her 
frame  under  damp  weather^  which  was  reacting  on  her 
mind ;  and  physical  means,  by  operating  on  her  body,  might 
be  applied  to  restore  her  to  her  half-lost  senses.  Our  imag- 
ination is  higher  when  our  stomach  is  not  overloaded ;  in 


MEDICINE  AND  MORALS  41 

spring  than  in  winter ;  in  solitude  than  amidst  company ;  and 
in  an  obscured  light  than  in  the  blaze  and  heat  of  the  noon. 
In  all  these  cases  the  body  is  evidently  acted  on,  and  reacts 
on  the  mind.  Sometimes  our  dreams  present  us  with  images 
of  our  restlessness  till  we  recollect  that  the  seat  of  our  brain 
may  perhaps  lie  in  our  stomach,  rather  than  on  the  pineal 
gland  of  Descartes ;  and  that  the  most  artificial  logic  to 
make  us  somewhat  reasonable,  may  be  swallowed  with  "the 
blue  pill."  Our  domestic  happiness  often  depends  on  the 
state  of  our  biliary  and  digestive  organs,  and  the  little  dis- 
turbances of  conjugal  life  may  be  more  efficaciously  cured  by 
the  physician  than  by  the  moralist ;  for  a  sermon  misapplied 
will  never  act  so  directly  as  a  sharp  medicine.  The  learned 
Gaubius,  an  eminent  professor  of  medicine  at  Leyden,  who 
called  himself  "professor  of  the  passions,"  gives  the  case  of 
a  lady  of  too  inflammable  a  constitution,  whom  her  husband, 
unknown  to  herself,  had  gradually  reduced  to  a  model  of 
decorum,  by  phlebotomy.  Her  complexion,  indeed,  lost  the 
roses,  which  some,  perhaps,  had  too  wantonly  admired  for 
the  repose  of  her  conjugal  physician. 

The  art  of  curing  moral  disorders  by  corporeal  means  has 
not  yet  been  brought  into  general  practise,  although  it  is 
probable  that  some  quiet  sages  of  medicine  have  made  use  of 
it  on  some  occasions.  The  Leyden  professor  we  have  just 
alluded  to  delivered  at  the  university  a  discourse  "on  the 
management  and  cure  of  the  disorders  of  the  mind  by  appli- 
cation to  the  body."  Descartes  conjectured,  that  as  the  mind 
seems  so  dependent  on  the  disposition  of  the  bodily  organs, 
if  any  means  can  be  found  to  render  men  wiser  and  more 
ingenious  than  they  have  been  hitherto,  such  a  method  might 
be  sought  from  the  assistance  of  medicine.  The  sciences 
of  Morals  and  of  Medicine  will  therefore  be  found  to  have 
a  more  intimate  connection  than  has  been  suspected.  Plato 
thought  that  a  man  must  have  natural  dispositions  toward 
virtue  to  become  virtuous ;  that  it  cannot  be  educated — you 
cannot  make  a  bad  man  a  good  man;  which  he  ascribes  to 
the  evil  dispositions  of  the  body,  as  well  as  to  a  bad  educa- 
tion. 


42  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

There  are,  unquestionably,  constitutional  moral  disorders; 
some  good-tempered  but  passionate  persons  have  acknowl- 
edged that  they  cannot  avoid  those  temporary  fits  to  which 
they  are  liable^  and  which,  they  say,  they  always  suffered 
"from  a  child."  If  they  arise  from  too  great  a  fulness  of 
blood,  is  it  not  cruel  to  upbraid  rather  than  to  cure  them, 
which  might  easily  be  done  by  taking  away  their  redundant 
humors,  and  thus  quieting  the  most  passionate  man  alive? 
A  moral  patient  who  allows  his  brain  to  be  disordered  by  the 
fumes  of  liquor,  instead  of  being  suffered  to  be  a  ridiculous 
being,  might  have  opiates  prescribed ;  for  in  laying  him 
asleep  as  soon  as  possible,  you  remove  the  cause  of  his  sud- 
den madness.  There  are  crimes  for  which  men  are  hanged, 
but  of  which  they  might  easily  have  been  cured  by  physical 
means.  Persons  out  of  their  senses  with  love,  by  throwing 
themselves  into  a  river  and  being  dragged  out  nearly  life- 
less, have  recovered  their  senses,  and  lost  their  bewildering 
passion.  Submersion  is  discovered  to  be  a  cure  for  some 
mental  disorders,  by  altering  the  state  of  the  body,  and  as 
Van  Helmont  notices,  "was  happily  practised  in  England." 
With  the  circumstance  to  which  this  sage  of  chemistry  al- 
ludes, I  am  unacquainted ;  but  this  extraordinary  practise 
was  certainly  known  to  the  Italians  ;  for  in  one  of  the  tales  of 
the  Poggio  we  find  a  mad  doctor  of  Milan,  who  was  cele- 
brated for  curing  lunatics  and  demoniacs  in  a  certain  time. 
His  practise  consisted  in  placing  them  in  a  great  high-walled 
courtyard,  in  the  midst  of  which  there  was  a  deep  well  full 
of  water,  cold  as  ice.  When  a  demoniac  was  brought  to 
this  physician,  he  had  the  patient  bound  to  a  pillar  in  the 
well,  till  the  water  ascended  to  the  knees,  or  higher,  and  even 
to  the  neck,  as  he  deemed  their  malady  required.  In  their 
bodily  pain  they  appear  to  have  forgot  their  melancholy ; 
thus  by  the  terrors  of  the  repetition  of  cold  water,  a  man 
appears  to  have  been  frightened  into  his  senses!  A  phy- 
sician has  informed  me  of  a  remarkable  case :  a  lady  with  a 
disordered  mind  resolved  on  death,  and  swallowed  much 
more  than  half  a  pint  of  laudanum ;  she  closed  her  curtains 
in  the  evening,  took  a  farewell  of  her  attendants,  and  flat- 


MEDICINE  AND  MORALS  43 

tered  herself  she  should  never  awaken  from  her  sleep.  In 
the  morning,  however,  notwithstanding  this  incredible  dose, 
she  awoke  in  the  agonies  of  death.  By  the  usual  means  she 
was  enabled  to  get  rid  of  the  poison  she  had  so  largely  taken, 
and  not  only  recovered  her  life,  but,  what  is  more  extraor- 
dinary, her  perfect  senses !  The  physician  conjectures  that  it 
was  the  influence  of  her  disordered  mind  over  her  body 
which  prevented  this  vast  quantity  of  laudanum  from  its 
usual  action  by  terminating  in  death. 

Moral  vices  or  infirmities,  which  originate  in  the  state 
of  the  body,  may  be  cured  by  topical  applications.  Precepts 
and  ethics  in  such  cases,  if  they  seem  to  produce  a  momen- 
tary cure,  have  only  moved  the  weeds,  whose  roots  lie  in  the 
soil.  It  is  only  by  changing  the  soil  itself  that  we  can 
eradicate  these  evils.  The  senses  are  five  porches  for  the 
physician  to  enter  into  the  mind,  to  keep  it  in  repair.  By 
altering  the  state  of  the  body,  we  are  changing  that  of  the 
mind,  whenever  the  defects  of  the  mind  depend  on  those  of 
the  organization.  The  mind,  or  soul,  however  distinct  its 
being  from  the  body,  is  disturbed  or  excited,  independent 
of  its  volition,  by  the  mechanical  impulses  of  the  body.  A 
man  becomes  stupefied  when  the  circulation  of  the  blood  is 
impeded  in  the  viscera;  he  acts  more  from  instinct  than  re- 
flection ;  the  nervous  fibres  are  too  relaxed  or  too  tense,  and 
he  finds  a  difficulty  in  moving  them ;  if  you  heighten  his 
sensations,  you  awaken  new  ideas  in  this  stupid  being;  and 
as  we  cure  the  stupid  by  increasing  his  sensibility,  we  may 
believe  that  a  more  vivacious  fancy  may  be  promised  to  those 
who  possess  one,  when  the  mind  and  the  body  play  to- 
gether in  one  harmonious  accord.  Prescribe  the  bath,  fric- 
tions, and  fomentations,  and  though  it  seems  a  round-about 
way,  you  get  at  the  brains  by  his  feet.  A  literary  man,  from 
long  sedentary  habits,  could  not  overcome  his  fits  of  melan- 
choly till  his  physician  doubled  his  daily  quantity  of  wine; 
and  the  learned  Henry  Stephens,  after  a  severe  ague,  had 
such  a  disgust  of  books,  the  most  beloved  objects  of  his 
whole  life,  that  the  very  thought  of  them  excited  terror  for 
a  considerable  time.    It  is  evident  that  the  state  of  the  body 


44  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

often  indicates  that  of  the  mind.  Insanity  itself  often  re- 
sults from  some  disorder  in  the  human  machine.  "What  is 
this  MIND,  of  which  men  appear  so  vain  ?"  exclaims  Flechier. 
"If  considered  according  to  its  nature  it  is  a  fire  which 
sickness  and  an  accident  most  sensibly  puts  out ;  it  is  a  deli- 
cate temperament,  which  soon  grows  disordered ;  a  happy 
conformation  of  organs,  which  wear  out ;  a  combination  and 
a  certain  motion  of  the  spirits,  which  exhaust  themselves ; 
it  is  the  most  lively  and  the  most  subtle  part  of  the  soul, 
which  seems  to  grow  old  with  the  body." 

It  Is  not  wonderful  that  some  have  attributed  such  virtues 
to  their  system  of  diet,  if  it  has  been  found  productive  of 
certain  effects  on  the  human  body.  Cornaro  perhaps  imag- 
ined more  than  he  experienced ;  but  Apollonius  Tyaneus, 
when  he  had  the  credit  of  holding  an  intercourse  with  the 
devil,  by  his  presumed  gift  of  prophecy,  defended  himself 
from  the  accusation  by  attributing  his  clear  and  prescient 
views  of  things  to  the  light  aliments  he  lived  on,  never  in- 
dulging in  a  variety  of  food.  "This  mode  of  life  has  pro- 
duced such  a  perspicuity  in  my  ideas,  that  I  see  as  in  a  glass 
things  past  and  future."  We  may,  therefore,  agree  with 
Bayes,  that  "for  a  sonnet  to  Amanda,  and  the  like,  stewed 
prunes  only"  might  be  sufficient ;  but  for  "a  grand  design," 
nothing  less  than  a  more  formal  and  formidable  dose. 

Camus,  a  French  physician,  who  combined  literature  with 
science,  the  author  of  "Abdeker,  or  the  Art  of  Cosmetics," 
which  he  discovered  in  exercise  and  temperance,  produced 
another  fanciful  work,  written  in  1753,  "La  Medecine  de 
I'Esprit."  His  conjectural  cases  are  at  least  as  numerous 
as  his  more  positive  facts ;  for  he  is  not  wanting  in  imagina- 
tion. He  assures  us,  that  having  reflected  on  the  physical 
causes,  which,  by  differently  modifying  the  body,  varied  also 
the  dispositions  of  the  mind,  he  was  convinced  that  by  em- 
ploying these  different  causes,  or  by  imitating  their  powers 
by  art,  we  might,  by  means  purely  mechanical,  affect  the 
human  mind,  and  correct  the  infirmities  of  the  understanding 
and  the  will.  He  considered  this  principle  only  as  the  aurora 
of  a  brighter  day.    The  great  difficulty  to  overcome  was  to 


MEDICINE  AND   MORALS  45 

find  out  a  method  to  root  out  the  defects,  or  the  diseases  of 
the  soul,  in  the  same  manner  as  physicians  cure  a  fluxion 
from  the  lungs,  a  dysentery,  a  dropsy,  and  all  other  infirmi- 
ties, which  seem  only  to  attack  the  body.  This,  indeed,  he 
says,  is  enlarging  the  domain  of  medicine,  by  showing  how 
the  functions  of  intellect  and  the  springs  of  volition  are 
mechanical.  The  movements  and  passions  of  the  soul,  for- 
merly restricted  to  abstract  reasonings,  are  by  this  system 
reduced  to  simple  ideas.  Insisting  that  material  causes  force 
the  soul  and  body  to  act  together,  the  defects  of  the  intel- 
lectual operations  depend  on  those  of  the  organization,  which 
may  be  altered  or  destroyed  by  physical  causes ;  and  he  prop- 
erly adds,  that  we  are  to  consider  that  the  soul  is  material, 
while  existing  in  matter,  because  it  is  operated  on  by  matter. 
Such  is  the  theory  of  "La  Medecine  de  I'Esprit,"  which, 
though  physicians  will  never  quote,  may  perhaps  contain 
some  facts  worth  their  attention. 

Camus's  two  little  volumes  seem  to  have  been  preceded 
by  a  medical  discourse  delivered  in  the  academy  of  Dijon  in 
1748,  where  the  moralist  compares  the  infirmities  and  vices 
of  the  mind  to  parallel  diseases  of  the  body.  We  may  safely 
consider  some  infirmities  and  passions  of  the  mind  as  dis- 
eases, and  could  they  be  treated  as  we  do  the  bodily  ones, 
to  which  they  bear  an  affinity,  this  would  be  the  great  tri- 
umph of  "morals  and  medicine."  The  passion  of  avarice 
resembles  the  thirst  of  dropsical  patients ;  that  of  envy  is  a 
slow  wasting  fever ;  love  is  often  frenzy,  and  capricious  and 
sudden  restlessness,  epileptic  fits.  There  are  moral  disorders 
which  at  times  spread  like  epidemical  maladies  through 
towns,  and  countries,  and  even  nations.  There  are  heredi- 
tary vices  and  infirmities  transmitted  from  the  parent's  mind, 
as  there  are  unquestionably  such  diseases  of  the  body ;  the 
son  of  a  father  of  a  hot  and  irritable  temperament  inherits 
the  same  quickness  and  warmth ;  a  daughter  is  often  the 
counterpart  of  her  mother.  Morality,  could  it  be  treated 
medicinally,  would  require  its  prescriptions,  as  all  diseases 
have  their  specific  remedies ;  the  great  secret  is  perhaps  dis- 


46  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

covered  by  Camus — that  of  operating  on  the  mind  by  means 
of  the  body. 

A  recent  writer  seems  to  have  been  struck  by  these  curious 
analogies.  Mr.  Haslam,  in  his  work  on  "Sound  Mind,"  says 
(p.  90)  :  "There  seems  to  be  a  considerable  similarity  be- 
tween the  morbid  state  of  the  instruments  of  voluntary  mo- 
tion (that  is,  the  body,)  and  certain  affections  of  the  mental 
powers  (that  is,  the  mind).  Thus,  paralysis  has  its  counter- 
part in  the  defects  of  recollection,  where  the  utmost  endeavor 
to  remember  is  ineffectually  exerted.  Tremor  may  be  com- 
pared with  incapability  of  -fixing  the  attention,  and  this  in- 
voluntary state  of  muscles  ordinarily  subjected  to  the  will, 
also  finds  a  parallel  where  the  mind  loses  its  influence  in  the 
train  of  thought,  and  becomes  subject  to  spontaneous  in- 
trusions ;  as  may  be  exemplified  in  reveries,  dreaming,  and 
some  species  of  madness." 

Thus  one  philosopher  discovers  the  analogies  of  the  mind 
with  the  body,  and  another  of  the  body  with  the  mind.  Can 
we  now  hesitate  to  believe  that  such  analogies  exist — and, 
advancing  one  step  further,  trace  in  this  reciprocal  influence 
that  a  part  of  the  soul  is  the  body,  as  the  body  becomes  a  part 
of  the  soul  ?  The  most  important  truth  remains  undivulged, 
and  ever  will  in  this  mental  pharmacy ;  but  none  is  more 
clear  than  that  which  led  to  the  view  of  this  subject,  that  in 
this  mutual  intercourse  of  body  and  mind  the  superior  is 
often  governed  by  the  inferior ;  others  think  the  mind  is  more 
wilfully  outrageous  than  the  body.  Plutarch,  in  his  essays, 
has  a  familiar  illustration  which  he  borrows  from  some  phil- 
osopher more  ancient  than  himself:  "Should  the  body  sue 
the  mind  before  a  court  of  judicature  for  damages,  it  would 
be  found  that  the  mind  would  prove  to  have  been  a  ruinous 
tenant  to  its  landlord."  The  sage  of  Cheronaea  did  not  fore- 
see the  hint  of  Descartes  and  the  discovery  of  Camus,  that 
by  medicine  we  may  alleviate  or  remove  the  diseases  of  the 
mind ;  a  practise  which  indeed  has  not  yet  been  pursued  by 
physicians,  though  the  moralists  have  been  often  struck  by 
the  close  analogies  of  the  mind  with  the  body !  A  work  by 
the  learned  Don  Pernetty,  La  Connoissance  De  L'Homme 


MEDICINE  AND   MORALS  47 

Moral  Par  Celle  De  U Homme  Physique,  we  are  told  is  more 
fortunate  in  its  title  than  its  execution ;  probably  it  is  one  of 
the  many  attempts  to  develop  this  imperfect  and  obscured 
truth,  which  hereafter  may  become  more  obvious,  and  be 
universally  comprehended. 


MEDICINE  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

BY 

PORTER  DA  VIES,  M.  D. 


MEDICINE  IN  THE  DARK  AGES 

|ROM  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  until  the  revival 
of  letters  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  treatment  of 
disease  throughout  Christendom  was  chiefly  in  the 
hands  of  the  monks,  whose  practise  was  a  jumble  of 
medication  and  superstitious  rites.  Their  influence  on  the 
progress  of  therapeutics,  considered  as  a  merely  mundane 
art,  must  be  set  down  as  on  the  whole  unfavorable.  Belief 
in  the  miracles  of  "Holy  Church"  paralyzed  the  search  after 
rational  remedies  for  disease,  and  interfered  with  their 
effective  use  even  when  found.  Charms  and  amulets  were 
more  trusted  than  medicines.  Yet  the  monks  did  not  alto- 
gether fall  in  with  the  superstitious  ideas  of  the  times.  In 
connection  with  the  monastery  were  often  to  be  found  the 
well-managed  hospital  and  the  garden  stocked  with  plants 
reputed  to  possess  healing  virtues.  Doubtless  the  monks 
v/ere  the  means  of  saving  many  lives  in  the  dark  and  trou- 
blous time  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  monastery  and 
its  hospital  often  formed  the  only  refuge  for  the  sick  and 
the  wounded. 

In  these  dark  ages,  light  gleamed  from  an  unlooked-for 
quarter.  The  Arabians,  whose  conquest  and  sway  over 
Western  Asia,  Northern  Africa,  and  Spain,  belong  to  the 
history  of  the  period  intervening  between  the  seventh  and 
the  thirteenth  century,  after  settling  down  in  the  fair  re- 
gions they  had  won  from  the  Christian  by  the  sword,  began 
to  cultivate  the  arts  and  sciences.  They  founded  schools  and 
collected  libraries,  and  the  works  of  Aristotle,  Plato,  Euclid, 
Hippocrates,  and  Galen,  were  translated  into  Arabic  by 
Honair,  a  physician  of  Bagdad  (the  capital  of  the  Arabian 
or  Mohammedan  Empire),  in  A.  D.  870.  Besides  preserv- 
ing from  destruction  the  writings  of  the  great  teachers  of 
Greece,  the  Arabs  made  some  improvements  in  the  art  of 


S3  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

medicine.  For  example,  they  substituted  mild  aperients, 
such  as  senna  and  rhubarb,  for  the  terrible  hellebore  (the 
purgative  of  Hippocrates),  made  additions,  such  as  musk, 
to  the  materia  medica,  and  were  the  first  to  employ  distilla- 
tion, as  well  as  chemical  analysis. 

One  of  the  most  distinguished  among  the  Arabian  physi- 
cians was  Rhazes,  who  wrote  twelve  books  on  chemistry, 
and  a  work  on  small-pox,  a  disease  he  was  the  first  to  de- 
scribe. His  pathology  and  therapeutics  he  took  from  Galen, 
of  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  a  devoted  disciple.  Of  even 
greater  renown  than  Rhazes  was  Avicenna,  called  Scheikh 
Reyes,  or  the  Prince  of  Physicians.  He  was  born  at  Bok- 
hara, and  at  an  early  age  was  celebrated  for  the  extent  of  his 
acquirements  in  all  branches  of  knowledge  then  taught.  He 
translated  the  works  of  Aristotle  into  Arabic,  from  which, 
in  the  twelfth  century,  Michael  Scott,  known  in  Scottish 
tradition  as  the  "wizard/'  and  whose  tomb  is  still  to  be  seen 
in  Melrose  Abbey,  translated  them  into  Latin.  A  singularly 
circuitous  way  was  this  for  knowledge  to  reach  the  remote 
isles  of  Western  Europe.  After  a  chequered  life,  being  at 
one  time  a  vizier,  at  another  in  prison  or  exile,  he  died  in 
the  year  1036,  at  the  age  of  fifty-eight.  His  system  of  thera- 
peutics in  no  way  differed  from  that  of  Galen  (who  died 
about  A.  D,  2G0),  but  the  literary  talent  displayed  in  his 
writings  caused  them  to  be  for  hundreds  of  years  an  indis- 
putable authority  in  medicine. 

Contemporary  with  Avicenna  flourished  the  Arab  historian 
of  medicine,  Haly  Abbas,  surnamed  Magus,  on  account  of 
his  great  learning,  whose  great  book,  of  which  a  Latin  trans- 
lation still  exists,  was  called  "Almalecus,"  or  the  Royal 
Work.  A  like  or  even  greater  renown  in  medicine  has  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  Avenzoar  of  Seville  and  Averroes  of  Cordova, 
two  of  the  most  learned  men  and  greatest  ornaments  of  Spain 
under  the  Saracens.  Later  than  these  flourished  Abulcasis, 
also  a  distinguished  medical  writer  and  practitioner. 

The  credit  due  to  the  Arabians  amounts  to  this,  that  they 
made  some  not  unimportant  additions  to  the  materia  medica, 
described  some  new  diseases ;  e.  g.,  small-pox  and  measles ; 


MEDICINE  IN  THE  DARK  AGES  53 

and  prevented  the  knowledge  and  wisdom  of  the  Greeks 
from  perishing  amid  the  great  historic  cataclasm  involved 
in  the  breaking  up  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the  overflow- 
ing of  Europe  by  the  tide  of  Northern  barbarism.  The  bar- 
barians, whether  Goths,  Vandals,  Huns,  Visigoths,  Franks, 
or  Lombards,  while,  through  fear  of  disease,  they  set  value 
upon  the  captive  physician,  and  often  lavishly  rewarded  his 
services,  had  neither  time,  taste,  nor  opportunity  to  cultivate 
the  science  and  art  of  medicine,  nor  in  the  turbulent  scenes 
which  they  everywhere  created  was  it  possible  for  the  class 
of  learned  men  to  be  perpetuated.  It  was  strange  that  the 
healing  art  found  a  patronage  from  a  faith  based  on  the 
power  of  the  sword,  which  it  could  not  then  find  from  that 
founded  on  the  words  of  Him  who  is  justly  called  the  Great 
Physician. 

An  exception  to  this  state  of  things  in  Christendom  was 
latterly — that  is,  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fifteenth  century — 
to  be  witnessed  in  the  Italian  republics,  whose  magnificent 
cities  were  the  homes  of  whatever  learning  and  art  had  sur- 
vived the  barbaric  deluge.  Milan,  for  example,  in  the  days 
of  its  greatest  glory,  is  said  to  have  contained  200  physicians, 
many  of  them  men  of  good  family  and  of  high  intelligence 
and  education.  An  Italian  physician,  Dr.  Giovanni  di  Pro- 
ceda,  made  his  name  prominent  in  connection  with  the 
political  movement  rendered  ever  memorable  by  the  "Si- 
cilian Vespers,"  But,  even  in  Italy,  the  influence  exercised 
by  such  a  half-mad,  though  undoubtedly  clever,  charlatan  as 
Jerome  Cardan,  shows  that  the  general  community  was  not 
remarkable  for  enlightenment  on  medical  subjects.  But  one 
medical  school,  that  of  Salernum,  near  Naples,  attained  to 
great  and  deserved  renown.  It  was  called  the  "City  of 
Hippocrates,"  and  its  foundation  consisted  of  ten  doctors, 
or  professors.  It  was  long  the  only  Christian  school  of  medi- 
cine in  Europe  worthy  of  the  name ;  for  though  here  and 
there,  in  university  or  cloister,  might  be  entombed  some 
prodigy  of  learning,  and  such  a  marvel  of  genius  as  Roger 
Bacon  might  create  astonishment  and  awe,  and  bring  upon 
himself  the  anathemas  of  the  church,  the  general  state  of 


54  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

medical  science  was  deplorable,  as  was  evidenced  by  the 
ravages  of  the  "sweating  sickness"  and  other  plagues  and 
epidemics  which  swept  over  and  decimated  the  helpless  popu- 
lations. But  by-and-by  a  better  era  dawned  on  the  West, 
fraught  with  new  health,  both  of  soul  and  body,  to  the 
great  masses  of  the  people. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  the  period  now  referred  to  that  a 
singular  character  appeared  on  the  stage  of  medical  history — 
Paracelsus,  who  was  bom  'at  Einsedeln,  near  Zurich,  in 
Switzerland,  in  1490.  His  father  was  superintendent  of  the 
convent  hospital  in  Einsedeln,  and  from  him  Paracelsus  re- 
ceived the  rudiments  of  his  education.  What  further  in- 
struction he  received  is  not  known,  but  eventually  he  set 
out  upon  his  travels  and  visited  Italy,  Germany,  and  Swe- 
den, and  even  extended  his  peregrinations  to  Asia  and  Egypt. 
He  is  conjectured  to  have  maintained  himself  by  working 
"wonderful  cures,"  and  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  he 
had  made  some  attainments,  if  not  discoveries,  in  chemistry. 
At  the  age  of  thirty-three  he  boasted  of  having  cured  thir- 
teen princes  whose  cases  had  been  declared  hopeless.  He 
became  Professor  of  Physic  and  Surgery  in  the  University 
of  Basle  in  the  year  1526.  Beginning  his  career  by  publicly 
burning  the  works  of  Galen  and  Rhazes,  he  lectured  to  his 
class,  in  German,  on  the  incompetency  of  reading  and  the 
necessity  of  travel  and  practise  to  make  a  physician.  His 
style  and  opinions  did  not  win  the  respect  of  his  pupils,  and 
the  class-room  was  soon  deserted.  This,  with  an  ignoble 
quarrel  in  which  he  involved  himself,  compelled  his  retire- 
ment from  Basle.  It  appeared  plainly  from  his  conduct  at 
this  time  that  Paracelsus  had  the  soul  of  a  quack^  though  he 
occupied  a  professorial  chair.  He  again  set  out  upon  his 
travels,  and  wherever  he  went  made  the  doctors  his  enemies 
by  denouncing  them  and  their  system,  and  performing  his 
"wonderful  cures."  At  Salzburg  this  led  to  fatal  conse- 
quences, for  Paracelsus,  after  one  of  his  tirades,  was  assailed 
by  the  doctors'  servants,  pitched  out  of  the  window  at  an  inn, 
and  had  his  neck  broken  by  the  fall.    This  happened  in  1541. 

The  impression  which  Paracelsus,  in  spite  of  his  errors 


MEDICINE  IN  THE  DARK  AGES  $5 

and  eccentricities,  made  upon  the  men  of  his  time  was  due 
to  his  audacity  in  exposing  the  defects  of  the  medical  sys- 
tems then  in  vogue,  and  insisting  on  the  merits  of  his  own 
methods.  The  Galenic  doctrine  he  denounced  with  unmiti- 
gated scorn,  nor  did  he  reverence  the  memory  of  Hippo- 
crates. The  popular  superstitions  connected  with  medicine 
he  brushed  aside  with  a  sweep  of  common  sense.  But  he 
was  more  successful  in  demolishing  old  doctrines  than  in 
building  up  new.  His  own  system,  so  far  as  it  can  now  be 
ascertained,  was  extremely  mystic  and  vague. 

One  feature  of  it  can  be  made  out  distinctly ;  vis.,  that  he 
regarded  disease  not  as  a  mere  change  in  humors  of  the 
body,  but  as  an  entity — an  invading  monster  which  must  be 
driven  out  by  a  superior  antagonistic  power.  Every  disease, 
he  maintained,  has  its  own  proper  arcanum  or  antidote.  With 
this  doctrine  he  mixed  up  certain  mystic  notions  about  the 
"spirit"  of  the  remedy,  which,  however,  are  somewhat  akin 
to  the  homoeopathic  doctrine  of  dynamization. 

To  hit  upon  the  antidote  for  each  disease,  Paracelsus  main- 
tained that  the  physician  should  have  a  knowledge  of  phil- 
osophy, astronomy,  and  alchemy;  but  of  the  meanings  which 
he  attached  to  these  words,  the  limits  of  this  paper  forbid 
detailed  explanations.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  by  philosophy 
he  meant  the  powers  of  nature ;  by  astronomy,  the  relations 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  to  the  human  constitution;  and  by 
alchemy,  virtually  pharmaceutical  chemistry,  which  pro- 
vided, as  he  thought,  antidotes  to  disease  in  great  number. 
His  principal  remedies  were,  however,  mercury,  opium,  and 
antimony,  which  still  play  an  important  part  in  medical 
practise.  Whether  any  single  medicine,  or  a  compound  of 
several,  constituted  his  elixir  vitcE,  is  not  so  certain  as  that 
it  failed  to  prolong  the  life  of  those  who  trusted  in  it. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE 


BY 


JOHN  CORDY  JEAFFRESON 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE 
CHAPTER  I 

LEARNING  AND  LITERATURE 

TjHE  youngest  of  the  three  learned  professions,  medi- 
I  cine,  is,  in  England  at  least,  so  comparatively  mod- 
ern that  the  student  can  survey  its  course  from  the 
period  when  it  first  became  in  this  country  a  regu- 
larly organized  and  authorized  vocation.  In  times  prior  to 
this  period  there  were  of  course  healers  amongst  us,  men 
who  in  their  learning  betrayed  by  turns  the  influence  of 
Northern  leech-lore  and  Southern  science,  and  who  in  prac- 
tise claimed  and  received  the  consideration  accorded  to  them 
by  the  son  of  Syrach,  when  he  wrote  the  familiar  words : 
"Honor  a  physician  with  the  honor  due  unto  him ;  for  the 
uses  which  you  may  have  of  him ;  for  the  Lord  hath  created 
him ;  for  of  the  Most  High  cometh  healing,  and  he  shall  re- 
ceive honor  of  the  king,"  words  which  John  Whitefoot,  the 
Norfolk  rector,  in  his  "Minutes  of  the  Life  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,"  says  he  would  have  taken  for  his  text  had  he  been 
appointed  to  preach  the  funeral  sermon  of  the  famous  Nor- 
wich physician  who  gave  a  grateful  world  the  "Religio 
Medici,"  and  received  the  dignity  of  knighthood  from 
Charles  the  Second. 

Long  before  the  revival  of  letters,  and  longer  yet  before 
the  science  resulting  from  that  revival^  it  was  rare  for  an 
English  town  of  any  considerable  importance  to  be  without 
a  physician  who  held  his  head  above  his  professional  com- 
petitors on  the  strength  of  having  studied  at  Oxford  or 
Cambridge,  or  graduated  at  Paris  or  Bologna.  With  his 
gown  of  "sanguyn  and  perse,"  lined  with  taffeta  and  sendal, 
the  doctor,  who  loved  the  gold  he  won  in  the  black  sickness, 


6o        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

and  knew  more  of  astrology  and  magic  than  the  Bible,  shows 
forth  bravely  to  this  hour  amongst  Chaucer's  throng  of 
jolly  pilgrims.  Mediaeval  England  also  produced  doctors, 
who,  wandering  to  foreign  schools  after  the  fashion  of  their 
time,  rose  to  affluence  and  fame  in  the  lands  they  visited 
for  learning's  sake.  John  Phreas,  the  fellow  of  Balliol,  some 
of  whose  letters  are  preserved  at  the  Bodleian,  went  to 
Padua  for  knowledge,  and  tarried  in  Italy  till  he  had  won  the 
favor  of  powerful  churchmen.  For  dedicating  his  transla- 
tion of  Diodorus  Siculus  to  Paul  the  Second  he  was  re- 
warded with  a  gift  that  cost  him  his  life — the  bishopric, 
which  he  had  barely  accepted  from  the  pontiff  when  he  was 
poisoned  by  a  disappointed  candidate  for  the  preferment. 
It  is  thus  that  biography  accounts  for  the  doctor's  disappear- 
ance from  the  world  at  the  moment  of  his  elevation.  But  in 
days  when  no  one  could  be  eminent  without  living  in  per- 
petual dread  of  the  poisoner ;  and  dish-covers,  instead  of 
being  invented  to  keep  the  heat  in  steaming  viands,  were 
invented  to  guard  the  savory  messes  from  the  poisons  which 
might  otherwise  be  thrown  upon  them  as  they  went  from 
the  kitchen  to  the  table,  people  were  so  quick  to  assign  every 
mysterious  death  to  the  most  odious  kind  of  assassination, 
that  readers  may  doubt  whether  John  Phreas  really  fell  a 
victim  to  any  such  outbreak  of  satanic  fury. 

But  though  there  were  physicians  before  Linacre,  even  as 
Agamemnon  was  preceded  by  many  heroes,  the  medical 
profession,  so  far  as  England  is  concerned,  may  be  said  to 
have  come  into  existence  shortly  after  a  famous  doctor  pre- 
vailed on  John  Chambre,  Fernandus  de  Victoria,  Nicholas 
Halswell,  John  Fraunces,  and  Robert  Yaxley  to  join  with 
him  in  a  petition  to  Henry  VIII.  for  letters  patent,  establish- 
ing a  college  with  power  to  enact  laws  for  the  regulation  of 
all  doctors  practising  within  London  and  seven  miles  thereof, 
and  all  practitioners  of  the  physic  throughout  the  kingdom, 
with  the  exception  of  those  who  were  graduates  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge. 

Even  as  the  legal  profession  dates  from  the  lawyers'  set- 
tlement in  the  Inns  of  Court,  the  medical  profession  dates 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  6i 

from  the  institution  of  the  College  of  Physicians.  The 
scheme  that  had  this  memorable  result  was  prepared  in  Lin- 
acre's  house  in  Knightrider  Street,  Doctor's  Commons,  and 
it  was  in  accordance  with  Cardinal  Wolsey's  care  for  learn- 
ing and  taste  for  founding  colleges  that  he  favored  the  pro- 
ject, and  espoused  it  so  far  as  to  join  in  the  prayer  for 
the  letters  patent.  It  would  have  been  strange  had  the  sov- 
ereign hesitated  to  grant  the  request  so  commended  to  his 
consideration.  Endowed  by  its  founder's  generosity  with 
sufficient  rooms  in  his  own  house,  that  ere  long  displayed  on 
its  wall  the  Physicians'  Arms,  devised  and  granted  by  Gar- 
ter King-at-Arms,  the  new  college  had  Linacre  for  its  first 
president.  A  fitter  man  for  the  office  could  not  have  been 
found  than  the  courtly  doctor  who  possessed  the  king's  con- 
fidence, and  the  elegant  writer  who  enjoyed  the  friendship 
of  Erasmus.  Linacre  had,  moreover,  other  titles  to  the 
homage  of  his  contemporaries.  Dr.  John  Kaye  (Caius), 
whose  concern  for  culture  survives  to  this  day  in  the  college 
created  by  his  wealth  at  Cambridge,  avoided  the  usual  and 
pardonable  fault  of  epitaph-writers,  when,  without  a  word 
of  excessive  eulogy,  he  wrote  on  the  first  president's  tomb: 
"Detesting  deceits  and  tricks,  faithful  to  his  friends,  be- 
loved by  all  men,  ordained  a  priest  some  years  before  his 
death,  he  passed  from  this  life  full  of  years  and  much  la- 
mented." Linacre's  motive  for  taking  holy  orders  toward 
the  close  of  his  career  is  unknown,  but  his  character  pre- 
cludes the  suspicion  that  he  was  ambitious  of  the  distinction 
to  which  John  Phreas  attained.  In  this  particular  his  conduct 
is  the  more  remarkable,  because  it  is  recorded  of  him  that, 
though  abounding  in  the  Christian  graces,  he  perused  the 
Testament  for  the  first  time  only  a  short  while  before  his 
death,  when  he  was  so  surprised  at  the  discrepancy  between 
the  doctrine  and  practise  of  persons  professing  Christianity, 
that  he  exclaimed  with  fervor  on  laying  down  the  sacred 
volume,  "Either  this  is  not  the  Gospel  or  we  are  not  Chris- 
tians." 

The  state  of  medicine  in  Henry  VIII.'s  England  may  be 
inferred  from  the  passages  of  the  letters  patent  for  estab- 


62  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

lishing  Linacre's  college,  which  declare  that  heretofore  a 
multitude  of  ignorant  persons^  the  greater  part  of  whom 
had  no  insight  into  physic  or  any  other  kind  of  learning, 
were  the  usual  advisers  of  the  sick  at  moments  of  urgent 
peril,  "so  far  forth  that  common  artificers,  as  smiths,  weav- 
ers, and  women,  boldly  and  accustomably  took  upon  them 
great  cures,  to  the  high  displeasure  of  God  and  destruction 
of  many  of  the  king's  liege  people."  Nor  was  the  ignorance 
confined  to  practitioners  who  could  not  have  read  a  verse  to 
save  themselves  from  the  halter.  In  truth  the  Tudors  had 
long  perished  from  reigning  houses  before  the  sick  had 
better  reason  for  trusting  many  a  stately  court  doctor  than 
a  rustic  dealer  in  simples.  An  author  of  delightful  books, 
William  Bulleyn — a  doctor  of  high  repute  in  the  reigns  of 
our  Sixth  Edward  and  his  sisters — dosed  his  patients  with 
"electuaries"  and  "precious  waters,"  compounded  in  ways 
as  wonderful  as  their  ingredients  were  numerous.  For  the 
preparation  of  his  celebrated  "Electuarium  de  Gemmis"  he 
says,  with  the  seriousness  suitable  to  a  philosopher:  "Take 
two  drachms  of  white  perles ;  two  little  peeces  of  saphyre ; 
jacinth,  corneline,  emerauldes,  granettes,  of  each  an  ounce ; 
setwal,  the  sweate  roote  doronike,  the  rind  of  pomecitron, 
mace,  basel  seede,  of  each  two  drachms ;  of  redde  corall, 
amber,  shaving  of  ivory,  of  each  two  drachms ;  rootes  both 
of  white  and  red  behen,  ginger,  long  pepper^  spicknard, 
folium  indicum,  saflfron,  cardamon,  of  each  one  drachm ; 
of  troch,  diarodon,  lignum  aloes,  of  each  half  a  small  hand- 
ful ;  cinnamon,  galinga,  zurubeth,  which  is  a  kind  of  setwal, 
of  each  one  drachm  and  a  half ;  thin  peeces  of  gold  and  silver, 
of  each  half  a  scruple ;  of  musk,  half  a  drachm.  Make  your 
electuary  with  honey  emblici,  which  is  the  fourth  kind  of 
mirobolans  with  roses,  strained  in  equall  partes,  as  much  as 
will  suffice.  This  healeth  cold  diseases  of  ye  brain,  harte, 
stomacke.  It  is  a  medicine  proved  against  the  tremblynge  of 
the  harte,  faynting  and  souning,  the  weaknes  of  the  stom- 
acke, pensivenes,  solitarines.  Kings  and  noble  men  have 
used  this  for  their  comfort.  It  causeth  them  to  be  bold- 
spirited,  the  body  to  smell  wel,  and  ingendreth  to  the  face 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  63 

good  coloure."  When  such  a  mess  was  served  to  kings 
and  princes  to  give  them  lightness  of  heart,  personal  fra- 
grance, and  a  clear  complexion^  cheaper  and  more  nauseous 
messes  of  half  a  hundred  incongruous  ingredients  were 
forced  down  the  throats  of  the  populace  to  bring  them  round 
from  the  ague  or  typhus. 

Following  Bulleyn,  at  a  distance  of  two  generations,  Theo- 
dore Turquet  de  Mayerne  shows  by  his  prescriptions  with 
what  little  science  a  man  of  fine  presence,  worldly  tact,  and 
agreeable  manner  could  rise  to  the  highest  honors  of  the 
medical  profession  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Dying  at 
Chelsea  in  1655,  when  he  was  buried  in  the  church  of  St. 
Martin's-in-the-Fields — the  same  church  in  which  John  Hun- 
ter found  his  Urst  grave  in  the  present  century — Sir  Theo- 
dore Mayerne  of  England  (Baron  Aulbone  of  France),  dur- 
ing the  long  career  which  closed  in  his  eighty-second  year, 
prescribed  for  almost  as  many  sovereigns  and  other  supreme 
personages  as  Sir  Henry  Holland  doctored  two  centuries 
later.  A  court  doctor  in  France,  he  was  also  a  court  doctor 
in  London.  Henry  IV.  and  Louis  XHL  of  France,  and 
James  L  and  Charles  L  of  England,  one  and  all  put  forth 
their  tongues  at  the  request  of  this  superlatively  fortunate 
practitioner,  who  in  time  prior  to  the  Restoration  saw  our 
Second  Charles  through  more  than  one  illness.  And  yet 
his  prescriptions  provoke  astonishment  and  laughter  in  this 
comparatively  enlightened  age.  A  sot  on  principle,  Mayerne 
recommended  his  patients  to  fortify  their  constitutions  by  a 
monthly  excess  in  wine  and  food,  and  when  this  regimen 
gave  them  a  smart  attack  of  gout  he  came  to  their  relief 
with  his  famous  gout  powder  that  contained,  with  other 
things  no  less  salutary,  "the  raspings  of  a  human  skull  un- 
buried."  For  the  benefit  of  hypochondriacal  suflferers  the 
doctor  invented  his  "balsam  of  bats,"  an  elegant  preparation 
made  of  adders,  bats,  sucking  whelps,  earth-worms,  hog's 
lard,  stag's  marrow,  and  stuff  from  the  bones  of  oxen.  When 
the  gout  powder  and  balsam  of  bats  failed  of  the  desired 
effect  he  had  recourse  to  amulets  and  charms.  Living  in  the 
time  of  Sir  Theodore  Mayerne's  brightest  celebrity,  it  is  not 


64  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

wonderful  that  Lord  Bacon  wrote  slightingly  of  medicine  as 
"a  science  which  had  been  more  professed  than  laboured, 
and  yet  more  laboured  than  advanced,  the  labour  having 
been  more  In  circle  than  in  progressions."  Possibly  May- 
erne's  success  and  methods  were  not  absent  from  the  great 
philosopher's  mind  when,  in  the  "Advancement  of  Learn- 
ing," after  speaking  of  medicine  as  an  art  that  "being  con- 
jectural, hath  made  so  much  the  more  place  to  be  left  for 
imposture,"  he  added:  "Nay,  we  see  the  weakness  and 
credulity  of  men  is  such  as  they  will  often  prefer  a  mounte- 
bank or  witch  before  a  learned  physician." 

In  the  seventeenth  century  and  earlier  time  the  mounte- 
banks of  medicine  were  not  confined  to  the  pretenders,  who, 
vending  nostrums  in  markets  and  fairs  from  a  raised  bench, 
attracted  the  multitude  with  the  facetious  speeches  and  antics 
that  caused  them  to  be  known  as  Merry  Andrews.  The 
more  fortunate  charlatans  drove  quite  as  brave  coaches,  wore 
quite  as  impressive  wigs,  and  lived  in  quite  as  fine  houses  as 
the  best  and  most  respectable  of  the  regular  doctors.  They 
were  quite  as  often  in  the  houses  of  the  great,  and  on  easy 
terms  with  supereminent  statesmen.  And  whilst  the  trick- 
sters could  thus  compete  with  honest  physicians,  who  did 
much  for  their  patients'  welfare  and  no  little  for  the  advance- 
ment of  medical  knowledge,  it  was  not  rare  for  a  doctor, 
holding  a  diploma  of  the  college,  and  knowing  as  much  as  any 
of  the  orthodox  faculty,  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the  popu- 
lace by  imitating  these  mountebanks,  who  were  nothing 
better  than  mere  mountebanks.  In  truth,  the  term  Merry 
Andrew  (a  term  synonymous  with  mountebank)  comes  to  us 
from  a  curious  character  of  the  sixteenth  century,  who, 
though  he  was  a  considerable  scholar,  an  able  physician  (as 
physic  went  in  those  days),  a  subtle  political  agent,  and  a 
reverend  priest,  did  not  deem  it  inconsistent  with  his  dignity 
to  dress  like  a  harlequin,  blow  a  trumpet  from  a  grotesquely 
painted  car,  and  talk  merry  nonsense  and  clever  ribaldry  for 
the  hour  together  from  a  public  platform  to  a  crowd  of  gap- 
ing rustics  or  saucy  citizens,  in  order  that  he  might  drive  a 
better  trade  in  pills  and  potions  with  his  delighted  auditors. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  65 

Whilst  a  paper  still  preserved  amongst  our  public  records 
points  to  the  political  services  rendered  to  Henry  VIII.'s 
Cromwell  by  "Andrew  Boorde,  priest,"  William  BuUeyn's 
"Dialogue  between  Soarnes  and  Chirugi"  bears  a  testimony 
that  this  same  Andrew  Boorde — the  father  of  the  "Merry 
Andrews" — "wrote  wel  of  physicke  to  profit  the  common 
wealth  withal." 

But  though  medicine  made  but  slow  progress  from  the 
establishment  of  Linacre's  college  to  the  time  when  Bacon 
wrote  on  the  advancement  of  learning,  and  from  the  period 
in  which  Mayerne  treated  hypochondria  and  gout  with  bat- 
balsam  and  powder  of  human  bones  to  the  time  when  Syden- 
ham, during  his  frequent  attacks  of  gout,  used  to  sit  at  an 
open  window  of  his  house  in  St.  James's  Square,  swilling 
small  beer  out  of  a  silver  tankard,  under  the  impression  that 
it  was  the  most  cooling  and  in  every  respect  most  salutary 
beverage  for  sufferers  from  his  particular  malady,  it  must 
not  be  imagined  that  nothing  was  being  done  to  raise  medi- 
cine from  the  darkness  of  mediaeval  quackery,  and  relieve  it 
of  the  censure  passed  upon  it  by  so  competent  a  critic  as 
Francis  Bacon.  Three  years  before  Mayerne's  death,  the 
College  of  Physicians  placed  in  their  hall  a  statue  to  a  doctor 
who  survived  Mayerne  by  two  years  and  three  months — ^the 
acute  observer  of  whom  it  was  written : 

The  circling  streams,  once  thought  but  pools  of  blood 
(Whether  life's  fuel  or  the  body's  food), 
From  dark  oblivion  Harvey's  name  shall  save. 

A  great  man  is  never  alone  in  his  greatness.  He  may 
have  overtopped  and  surpassed  his  contemporaries,  but  on 
inquiry  he  will  be  always  found  to  have  companions  who 
resembled  him  in  ability  and  purpose,  in  the  characteristics 
of  their  endowments  and  the  ends  for  which  they  employed 
them.  The  elite  of  Harvey's  medical  contemporaries  resem- 
bled him  in  being  Baconian  observers ;  and  they  have  been 
followed  by  the  steadily-growing  army  of  observers  and  rea- 
soners  who,  working  on  the  Baconian  method,  gathered  the 
facts  and  arrived  at  the  conclusion  which  enable  the  present 


(6  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

practitioners  of  medicine  to  detect  the  nature  of  hidden 
disease  so  precisely,  to  foretell  its  course  so  accurately,  and 
treat  it  at  every  turn  so  effectively.  To  those  physicians  of 
olden  time  and  their  successors  it  is  due  that  in  this  happier 
age  the  poorest  peasant  of  a  petty  hamlet  has  at  his  sick-bed 
a  medical  attendant  more  intelligent  within  the  lines  of  his 
peculiar  calling  and  more  capable  of  combating  the  ailments 
to  which  humanity  is  liable,  than  any  of  the  doctors  who 
quickened  Charles  II.'s  final  sufferings,  or,  thronging  round 
Queen  Anne's  death-bed,  pelted  one  another  with  sarcastic 
speeches. 

Moreover,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  if  he  wrote 
slightingly  of  their  special  science  and  remedial  processes. 
Bacon  had  the  highest  respect  for  the  intelligence  and  cul- 
ture of  the  physicians  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  and 
for  their  discretion  on  matters  outside  the  province  of  their 
particular  calling.  Speaking  of  the  diverse  acquirements  and 
capabilities  of  the  Elizabethan  physicians,  he  says,  "For  you 
shall  have  of  them  antiquaries,  poets,  humanists,  statesmen, 
merchants,  divines."  Such  testimony  from  so  impressive  a 
witness  would  by  itself  save  us  from  the  mistake  of  judging 
these  doctors  by  their  prescriptions.  But  there  is  a  re- 
dundance of  corroborative  evidence  that,  whilst  their  theory 
and  practise  in  professional  matters  accorded  with  prevailing 
opinion,  they  went  with  the  men  of  light  and  leading  on 
all  other  subjects. 

The  story  of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby's  Sympathetic  Powder 
enables  us,  whilst  reviewing  the  science  and  practise  of  the 
doctors  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  realize  what  their 
more  educated  patients  believed  or  were  ready  to  believe  re- 
specting disease  and  its  treatment.  Sir  Kenelm  made  his 
celebrated  powder  in  the  following  manner :  After  dissolv- 
ing vitrol  in  warm  water  he  filtered  this  solution,  and  left 
it  in  the  air  to  evaporate  till  a  thin  scum  appeared  on  the 
surface.  Closely  covered,  this  solution  was  kept  in  a  cool 
place  for  two  or  three  days,  when  it  precipitated  fair  green 
crystals,  that  were  exposed  in  a  large  flat  earthen  dish  to  the 
heat  of  the  sun  in  the  dog-days  till  the  sun  calcined  them. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  6^ 

When  thus  calcined  they  were  roughly  powdered,  and  again 
exposed  to  the  sun  for  further  calcination,  and  put  again  in 
the  mortar  for  further  trituration.  This  treatment  was  re- 
peated till  the  crystals  were  reduced  to  the  finest  possible 
powder,  which  possessed  truly  marvelous  properties.  Good 
for  many  things,  it  was  especially  efficacious  for  the  cure 
of  wounds.  If  a  piece  of  a  wounded  man's  raiment,  stained 
with  blood  from  the  wound,  were  dipped  in  water  holding 
some  of  this  miraculous  powder  in  solution,  the  wound  of  the 
injured  person  forthwith  began  to  heal — it  mattered  not 
how  long  a  time  had  elapsed  since  the  infliction  of  the  wound, 
or  how  far  the  sufferer  was  away  from  the  place  where  the 
bit  of  blood-stained  raiment  was  placed  in  the  sympathetic 
solution.  The  patient  might  be  dying  in  Paris  or  Madrid, 
and  the  piece  of  stained  linen  or  velvet  might  be  operated 
upon  in  London.  It  was  not  needful  that  the  patient  should 
place  faith  in  the  remedy,  or  even  that  he  should  know  how 
his  cure  was  being  compassed  at  the  distance  of  a  thousand, 
or  any  number  of  thousands  of  miles.  Coming  accidentally 
on  two  of  his  friends  when  they  were  fighting  a  duel  with 
swords,  James  Howel,  the  author  of  the  "Dendrologia," 
with  excellent  motives  and  inconvenient  consequences,  in- 
terposed between  the  combatants  and  tried  to  separate  them. 
The  immediate  result  of  this  interference  was  that  Mr. 
Howel  retired  from  the  field  with  his  hands  badly  cut  by  the 
swords  of  the  belligerents.  Five  days  later,  when  his  hands 
were  in  so  bad  a  way  that  the  surgeons  feared  the  wounds 
would  gangrene,  Mr.  Howel  had  recourse  to  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby,  the  knight  whom  his  eulogists  delighted  to  term  "a 
gentleman  absolute  in  all  numbers,"  whatever  that  may 
mean.  Taking  from  his  visitor  a  garter  stained  with  blood 
from  the  wounded  hands,  Sir  Kenelm,  without  letting  the 
sufferer  know  or  suspect  what  was  about  to  be  done,  threw 
the  article  of  costume  into  a  vessel  that  contained  some  of 
the  vitriolic  solution.    The  cure  worked  instantaneously. 

"What  ails  you?"  cried  Sir  Kenelm,  seeing  his  patient 
start  with  a  look  of  mingled  surprise  and  gratification. 

"I  know  not  how  it  has  come  about,  but  all  the  pain  has 


68  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

left  my  hands,"  was  the  answer.  "Methinks  that  a  pleasing 
kind  of  freshness,  as  it  were  a  cold  napkin,  has  replaced  the 
inflammation  that  a  minute  since  was  tormenting  me." 

"Good,"  rejoined  the  knight  absolute  in  all  numbers. 
"Then  throw  away  the  medicaments  and  plaisters,  and  only 
see  that  you  keep  the  wounds  clean." 

Instead  of  going  home  like  a  prudent  invalid,  Mr.  Howel 
forthwith  ran  about  the  town,  telling  his  acquaintances  of 
the  marvelous  affair.  Catching  the  gossip  of  the  courtiers, 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham  hastened  to  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  to 
ascertain  the  exact  truth  of  the  matter.  After  entertaining 
the  duke  with  dinner.  Sir  Kenelm,  to  demonstrate  the  power 
of  his  powder,  took  the  garter  out  of  the  solution,  and  in 
his  grace's  presence  dried  it  before  the  fire.  Scarcely  was 
it  dry,  when  Mr.  Howel's  servant  ran  into  the  room  with 
the  announcement  that  his  master's  hands  were  worse  than 
ever — ay,  were  burning  as  though  they  were  placed  between 
coals  of  fire.  The  servant  having  been  dismissed  with  an 
assurance  that  on  returning  to  his  master  he  would  find  his 
wounds  painless  and  free  from  inflammation,  Sir  Kenelm  put 
the  garter  back  in  the  solution,  with  a  result  altogether  sat- 
isfactory to  Mr.  Howel  and  his  servant.  During  the  next 
six  days  there  was  little  talk  in  the  best  houses  of  James  I.'s 
London  on  any  subject  but  Mr.  Howel's  case  and  Sir 
Kenelm's  powder.  King  James  required  a  series  of  bulletins, 
giving  him  quick  intelligence  of  every  change  in  the  pa- 
tient's state ;  and  on  the  completion  of  the  cure  his  Majesty 
successfully  besought  Sir  Kenelm  to  tell  him  how  the  powder 
was  made.  If  he  is  to  be  trusted,  Sir  Kenelm  learnt  how  to 
make  the  sympathetic  vitriol  from  a  French  philosopher, 
who  described  the  process  in  an  oration  delivered  to  "a  sol- 
emn assembly  of  nobles  and  learned  men  at  Montpellier  in 
France."  Whatever  the  confidence  or  distrust  to  which  the 
knight  is  entitled,  it  is  certain  that  for  a  time  educated  Eng- 
lish people  believed  in  Sir  Kenelm  and  his  powder  quite  as 
readily  and  generally  as  uneducated  people  of  the  present 
time  believe  in  any  imposture  of  the  hour  which  tickles  and 
fascinates  them. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  69 

The  evidence  is  superabundant  that,  whilst  they  merely- 
resembled  their  most  intelligent  patients  in  credulity  on 
matters  pertaining  to  medicine,  the  doctors  of  former  gen- 
erations, in  respect  to  mental  activity  and  general  culture, 
were  in  harmony  with  the  brightest  and  choicest  spirits  of 
their  times.  No  small  part  of  our  literary  annals  relates  to 
the  dignity  of  physicians,  their  scholarly  doings,  and  their 
affectionate  intimacy  with  the  men  who  gave  us  our  best 
literature.  If  Caius  figures  ludicrously  in  "The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor,"  Dr.  Butts  (the  first  of  our  medical 
knights)  plays  no  unworthy  part  in  Shakespeare's  "Henry 
the  Eighth."  Bulleyn,  Gerard  (the  herbalist),  and  Turner 
are  favorite  authors  with  all  who  delight  in  our  earlier 
printed  literature.  Though  he  provoked  the  censures  of  Sir 
Kenelm  Digby,  whose  "Observations  upon  the  Religio 
Medici"  were  properly  described  by  Coleridge  as  the  ob- 
servations of  a  pedant,  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  writings  still 
command  the  grateful  consideration  of  liberal  and  judicious 
students.  Before  earning  imperishable  celebrity  by  his  phi- 
losophical essays,  John  Locke  followed  the  profession  of 
medicine.  Though  the  verses,  which  he  composed  to  the 
rolling  of  his  chariot  wheels,  stirred  the  derision  of  the  wits, 
Sir  Richard  Blackmore's  poetry  ceases  to  be  discreditable 
when  it  is  regarded  as  the  mere  pastime  of  a  busy  doctor. 
Though  he  was  the  subject  of  the  stinging  epigram : 

For  Physic  and  farces 

His  equal  there  scarce  is; 
His  farces  are  physic, 

His  physic  a  farce  is, 

Sir  John  Hill  produced  some  useful  books,  one  of  which  ran 
through  dozens  of  editions,  and  became  so  universally  and 
enduringly  famous,  that  it  may  without  exaggeration  be  de- 
clared to  live  to  this  hour  on  the  lips  of  educated  people. 
Sydenham  had  a  wider  knowledge  of  literature  than  is 
imagined  by  the  many  persons  who  remember  him  chiefly 
by  the  piquant  speech  with  which  he  avoided  Blackmore's 
application  for  advice  respecting  the  course  of  study  by 


70  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

which  he  might  hope  to  raise  himself  from  the  discredit 
of  being  an  unsuccessful  schoolmaster  to  the  honor  that 
eventually  covered  him  as  a  successful  physician.  "Read 
'Don  Quixote,'  it  is  a  very  good  book ;  I  read  it  still,"  said 
the  great  doctor,  who  had  been  in  his  earlier  time  a  captain 
of  cavalry,  and  was  indebted  in  no  small  degree  for  his  sub- 
sequent eminence  to  the  knowledge  of  the  world  that  had 
come  to  him  in  mihtary  service. 

Probably  there  was  no  more  truth  in  Radcliffe's  avowal  of 
a  contemptuous  disregard  for  Hippocrates  than  in  Syden- 
ham's affectation  of  owing  his  medical  success  to  Cervantes. 
When  Radcliffe,  towards  the  close  of  his  inordinately  suc- 
cessful career,  made  his  first  call  on  the  young  physician  who 
succeeded  to  the  greater  part  of  his  practise,  he  is  said  to 
have  caught  Mead  reading  Hippocrates. 

"Umph!  Do  you  read  Hippocrates  in  Greek?"  asked  the 
visitor,  in  a  tone  implying  no  growth  of  kindly  feeling  for 
the  young  man  who  spent  his  leisure  so  unprofitably. 

"Occasionally,"  answered  Mead,  making  the  least  of  his 
misdemeanor  by  the  tone  in  which  he  uttered  the  discreetly 
chosen  word. 

"Umph !  I  never  read  a  line  from  him  in  any  language," 
growled  the  great  man. 

"You,  sir,  have  no  occasion ;  you  are  Hippocrates  him- 
self," returned  the  aspirant  to  professional  eminence,  seeing 
almost  in  the  same  moment  that  the  compliment  had  taken 
the  desired  effect. 

It  was  by  such  affectation  that  Radcliffe  acquired  the  dis- 
repute which  caused  Garth  to  exclaim  that  for  Radcliffe  to 
leave  his  money  to  create  a  library  was  as  though  an  eunuch 
should  found  a  seraglio.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the 
physician  who  had  held  a  Lincoln  fellowship,  and  in  his 
earlier  time  at  Oxford  became  the  senior  scholar  of  Uni- 
versity College,  was  unable  to  read  Greek,  or  that  a  man 
of  his  energy  and  acuteness  was  really  satisfied  with  a  room 
of  study  that  contained  nothing  more  notable  than  the  few 
vials,  the  skeleton,  and  the  herbal,  to  which  he  called  Dr. 
Bathurst's  attention,  exclaiming  boastfully,  "This  is  Rad- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  71 

cliffe's  library."  Nor  was  the  affectation  of  scholastic  ig- 
norance his  only  or  most  unpleasant  affectation.  Capable  of 
munificence,  it  pleased  him  to  pretend  that  he  was  a  miser. 
By  no  means  deficient  in  kindness,  he  liked  to  persuade  the 
world  that  he  was  wanting  in  common  humanity.  Not  de- 
void of  magnanimity,  he  delighted  in  playing  the  cynic,  even 
in  his  least  austere  moods,  as  when  he  exclaimed  to  his  pe- 
culiar favorite  of  all  the  rising  doctors,  "Mead,  I  love  you, 
and  I'll  tell  you  a  sure  secret  to  make  your  fortune ;  use  all 
mankind  ill."  In  his  kindlier  moments  a  man  of  cordial 
manner  and  pleasant  address,  he  was  a  byword  alike  amongst 
his  personal  acquaintances  and  those  who  knew  him  only  by 
report  for  insolence  of  bearing  and  brutality  of  speech.  No 
wonder  that  the  man  who  was  at  so  much  pains  to  misrep- 
resent himself  was  almost  universally  misunderstood.  No 
wonder  that  Mandeville  mistook  him  for  an  extravagant 
caricature  of  all  that  is  most  sordid  and  despicable  in  human 
nature,  and  attributed  to  vulgar  vanity  the  will  that  gave 
Oxford  the  library,  the  infirmary,  the  observatory,  and  the 
traveling  fellowships  that  bear  the  physician's  name.  No 
wonder  also,  as  insolence  is  apt  to  provoke  insolence,  that 
this  overbearing  doctor  often  met  his  match  and  something 
more  than  his  match  in  incivility.  When  they  squabbled 
about  the  door  in  the  wall  that  separated  their  contiguous 
gardens  in  Bow  Street,  Radcliffe  received  a  Roland  for  his 
Oliver  from  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  to  whom  he  sent  a  ser- 
vant with  the  order,  "Tell  Sir  Godfrey  that  he  may  do  what 
he  likes  with  the  door  so  long  as  he  doesn't  paint  it."  "Go 
back,"  said  the  artist,  with  admirable  humor  and  perfect 
good-humor,  "and,  giving  my  service  to  Dr.  Radcliffe,  tell 
him  I'll  take  anything  from  him — except  his  physic."  Even 
happier  was  the  retort  of  the  Irish  pavior  to  the  torrent  of 
abuse  poured  upon  him  by  the  irascible  physician  for  what 
he  thought  bad  workmanship  on  the  pavement  before  his 
house.  "What,  you  rascal,"  cried  the  doctor,  "have  you  the 
impudence  to  demand  payment  for  such  work?  You  have 
spoiled  my  pavement,  you  scoundrel,  and  then  covered  the 


•J2  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

stones  with  earth  to  hide  the  bad  work."  "F  faith,  yer 
honor,"  the  workman  repHed,  "it  isn't  for  yer  honor  to  say 
that  mine  is  the  only  bad  work  the  earth  hides."  Samuel 
Johnson  was  of  opinion  that  little  good  had  come  of  the 
traveling  fellowships.  "I  know,"  he  said  to  Boswell,  "noth- 
ing that  has  been  imported  by  them."  But  if  they  have  done 
little  good,  it  is  as  certain  as  aught  in  human  affairs  that 
they  were  founded  in  the  hope  of  doing  good.  Writing 
under  provocation  given  him  by  the  subject  of  his  censure, 
Mandeville  may  be  pardoned  for  misjudging  the  physician, 
but  at  this  distance  from  the  time  when  the  doctor's  caustic 
tongue  made  him  an  army  of  enemies,  no  generous  nature 
will  concur  in  the  philosopher's  opinion  of  the  bequests  to 
Oxford. 

It  is  the  easier  to  pardon  Radcliffe's  manifold  offenses 
against  good  feeling  and  his  neglect  of  elegant  letters,  be- 
cause he  was  surrounded  and  followed  by  physicians  abun- 
dantly careful  for  the  amenities  of  life  and  at  the  same  time 
honorably  remembered  for  literary  services  redounding  to 
the  honor  of  their  profession.  Garth,  Freind,  Hans  Sloane, 
Arbuthnot,  Mead,  Akenside,  Armstrong,  Grainger,  Monsey, 
and  Lettsom  are  among  the  most  prominent  of  the  long  list 
of  scholarly  physicians  who,  between  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  bright- 
ened London  literary  cliques,  and  made  a  single  brotherhood 
of  our  men  of  letters  and  followers  of  medicine.  If  Oliver 
Goldsmith  was  not  a  physician  he  was  enough  of  a  doctor 
to  be  named  with  the  poets  of  the  medical  profession.  Smol- 
lett's title  to  be  rated  with  the  faculty,  or,  rather,  the  doc- 
tors' claim  to  the  honor  of  rating  him  as  one  of  themselves, 
is  still  stronger. 

Of  this  throng  of  doctors  who  lived  in  familiar  intercourse 
with  the  famous  writers  who  were  wits  without  being  physi- 
cians, no  one  is  remembered  more  agreeably  than  Samuel 
Garth,  who,  in  "The  Dispensary,"  a  poem  that,  claiming 
some  consideration  on  the  score  of  its  literary  merits,  claims 
a  larger  measure  of  respect  as  an  entertaining  memorial  of 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  73 

the  fiercest  controversy  of  our  medical  annals,  wrote  of  his 
professional  contemporaries  and  their  college: 

Not  far  from  that  most  celebrated  place 
Where  angry  justice  shows  her  awful  face. 
Where  little  villains  must  submit  to  fate 
That  great  ones  may  enjoy  the-  world  in  state. 
There  stands  a  dome,  majestic  to  the  sight, 
And  sumptuous  arches  bear  its  oval  height; 
A  golden  globe,  placed  high  with  artful  skill, 
Seems,  to  the  distant  sight,  a  gilded  pill. 
The  pile  was,  by  the  pious  patron's  aim, 
Raised  for  a  use  as  noble  as  its  frame, 
Nor  did  the  learned  society  decline 
The  propagation  of  that  great  design; 
In  all  her  mazes  Nature's  face  they  viewed. 
And,  as  she  disappeared,  their  search  pursued. 
Wrapt  in  the  shade  of  night,  the  goddess  lies, 
Yet  to  the  learned  unveils  her  dark  disguise. 
And  shuns  the  gross  access  of  vulgar  eyes. 

To  view  what  remains  of  this  stately  pile  the  reader  of 
this  page  must  make  an  excursion  to  Warwick  Lane.  Built 
after  the  Great  Fire  of  London,  that  burnt  the  doctors  out 
of  their  home  at  Amen  Corner,  whither  the  faculty  moved 
on  finding  Linacre's  old  house  in  Knightrider  Street  too 
narrow  for  their  growing  dignity  and  necessities,  the  col- 
lege, with  its  dome  and  sumptuous  arches,  and  all  its  struc- 
tural appurtenances,  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  butchers 
of  Newgate  Market  on  the  migration  of  the  physicians  to 
their  present  mansion  in  Pall  Mall  East,  a  fate  that  in  the 
opinion  of  some  persons  would  have  more  appropriately  be- 
fallen the  old  Surgeons'  Hall  in  the  same  quarter  of  the 
town.  Since  the  butchers  entered  into  possession,  the  place 
has  doubtless  heard  more  noise  than  it  ever  heard  whilst  it 
was  the  abode  of  science,  but  it  can  scarcely  have  sheltered 
fiercer  disputants  since  1825  than  those  who  raised  their 
voices  in  its  chambers  during  the  dispensarian  controversy. 
Never  has  fiercer  contention  arisen  from  so  small  a  cause. 
At  first  the  only  matter  in  dispute  was  whether  the  physi- 
cians should  open  a  dispensary  on  their  premises,  and,  pre- 


74  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

scribing  for  the  poor  without  fee,  should  sell  them  the  pre- 
scribed medicines  at  cost  price. 

The  proposal,  with  all  its  appearance  of  reasonable  and 
praiseworthy  benevolence,  cannot  be  said  to  have  proceeded 
from  unalloyed  charity.  From  the  date  of  its  erection  in 
1670,  some  of  the  physicians  had  regarded  the  Apothecaries' 
Hall  in  Water  Lane  with  suspicion  and  bitterness.  It  was 
whispered  amongst  the  graduates  of  the  college  that  the 
tradesmen  of  the  hall  were  growing  too  powerful,  were  en- 
croaching on  the  privileges  of  the  faculty,  and  were  daily 
growing  more  rebellious  against  the  wholesome  government 
of  their  superiors  in  Warwick  Lane.  It  could  not  be  denied 
that,  without  any  license  sought  from  or  granted  by  the 
college,  the  vendors  of  drugs  had  assumed  to  themselves  a 
right  to  prescribe  for  the  poorer  sort  of  patients,  albeit 
apothecaries  were  instituted  for  no  other  purpose  than  to 
dispense  the  prescriptions  of  regular  physicians  and  col- 
legiate licentiates  at  charges  fixed  by  the  college.  It  was 
averred  by  the  doctors  who  disliked  the  hall  that  the 
apothecaries  charged  the  poor  so  heavily  for  dispensing  phy- 
sicians' prescriptions  as  to  render  it  impossible  for  the  in- 
digent sick  to  procure  the  medicines  so  prescribed.  Under 
these  circumstances  it  was  proposed  by  the  physicians,  who 
soon  became  known  as  dispensarians,  to  open  a  dispensary 
in  the  place  and  for  the  purpose  already  stated.  Styling 
themselves  anti-dispensarians,  the  physicians  who  opposed 
the  project  maintained  with  a  fervor  which  would  have 
been  excessive  had  the  welfare  of  the  whole  nation  depended 
on  the  issue  of  the  contest,  that  the  dispensarians  were  actu- 
ated by  an  ignoble  jealousy  of  the  apothecaries,  made  charity 
a  stalking-horse  to  their  selfishness  and  spite,  and  aimed  at 
degrading  the  college  into  an  association  of  tradesmen.  Of 
course  the  dispensarians  retorted  that  their  opponents  within 
the  college  were  truckling  to  and  currying  favor  with  the 
powerful  apothecaries.  It  was  no  mere  quarrel  between 
two  sets  of  physicians,  for  the  apothecaries  insisted  on  being 
heard  on  a  matter  affecting  their  interests  and  honor.  It 
was  a  nice  row,  a  triangular  duel  between  the  dispensarian 


^^^'-T' 


S  OLD 

em  the  t>'^- 
>3t  price. 

1  the  date  of  its  erection  in 


ered  ai;  raduates  of  the  college  that  the 

growing  too  powerful,  were  en- 

.-„.-s  of  the  faculty,  and  were  daily 

v.s  against  the  wholesome  government 

m  Warwick  Lane.    It  could  not  be  denied 

license  sought  from  or  granted  by  the 

<rs  of  drugs  had  assumed  to  themselves  a 

:ribe  for  the  poorer  sort  of  patients,  albeit 

...  .^-4',^..  .'   ,• .-.  .^^•...:.,   -i^-pose  than  to 

ns  and  col- 
entiate?  ^e.     It  was 


escnp!,ii^'^>M?i^   Jenner  t,,^  the  in- 

*  *  '     Under 

.  ns,  who 
known  as  di  :  dispensary 


maintained  with  a   fervor  which  would  have 
'.  the  welfare 

_, J  contest,  tha..-    -,---- -.... 

•  ignoble  jealousy  of  the  apothecaries,  made  charity 

se  to  their  selfishness  and  spite,  and  aimed  at 

college  into  an  association  of  tradesmen.    Of 

oensarians  retorted  that  their  opponents  within 

the  c  truckling  to  and  currying  favor  with  the 

?.     It  was  no  mere  quarrel  between 

for  the  apothecaries  insisted  on  being 

ig  their  interests  and  honor.     ^^ 

.4  nice  iow,  ;  ^uel  between  the  dispensarian 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  75 

doctors,  the  anti-dispensarian  doctors,  and  the  apothecaries. 
Pamphlets  in  prose,  pamphlets  in  verse,  broadsides,  squibs, 
caricatures,  appeared  on  the  burning  questions.  Sir  Richard 
Blackstone  was  an  anti-dispensarian — a  fact  that  would 
have  decided  Sir  Samuel  Garth  to  join  the  dispensarians,  had 
he  not  been  in  their  confidence  from  the  first. 

Stranger  even  than  the  heat  into  which  the  doctors  worked 
themselves,  was  the  degree  in  which  the  public  sympathized 
with  the  fury  of  the  faculty,  siding  now  with  the  one  and 
now  with  the  other  set  of  disputants.  Sir  Samuel  Garth's 
poem  had  no  sooner  appeared  on  the  bookstalls  than  it  was 
seen  in  the  hands  of  every  modish  spark  and  every  woman 
of  fashion.  Ceasing  for  the  moment  to  care  whether  their 
friends  were  Whigs  or  Tories,  men  and  women  of  quality 
were  only  desirous  that  their  friends  should  be  sound  and 
staunch  on  the  medical  question.  Pope,  of  course,  held  with 
Garth,  the  beloved  doctor  to  whom  he  dedicated  the  second 
pastoral  with  the  lines : 

Accept,  O  Garth,  the  Muse's  early  lays, 
That  adds  this  wreath  of  ivy  to  thy  bays; 
Hear  what  from  love  unpractised  hearts  endure, 
From  love,  the  sole  disease  thou  canst  not  cure, 

— ^the  beloved  doctor  of  whom  he  wrote,  when  death  had 
divided  them,  "If  ever  there  was  a  good  Christian,  without 
knowing  himself  to  be  so,  it  was  Dr.  Garth."  How  cor- 
dially the  poet  adopted  the  cause  and  prejudices  and  pas- 
sions of  his  medical  friends  against  the  apothecaries,  is 
shown  also  by  the  lines  of  the  "Essay  on  Criticism": 

Then  Criticism  the  Muse's  handmaid  proved, 

To  dress  her  charms  and  make  her  more  beloved; 

But  following  wits  from  that  intention  strayed. 

Who  could  not  win  the  mistress,  woed  the  maid; 

Against  the  poets  their  own  arms  they  turned, 

Sure  to  hate  most  the  men  from  whom  they  learned. 

So  modern  'Pothecaries  taught  the  art 

By  Doctors'  bills  to  play  the  Doctor's  part, 

Bold  in  the  practise  of  mistaken  rules, 

Prescribe,  apply,  and  call  their  masters  fools. 

Garth,  moreover,  was  only  one  of  a  bevy  of  doctors  grace- 


76  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

fully  commemorated  in  the  poems  of  the  Twickenham  bard, 
who  honored  them  none  the  less  because,  in  the  life  that 
was  one  long  disease,  he  needed  their  ministrations  at  every 
turn.    "I'll  do,"  he  wrote— 

What  Mead  and  Cheselden  advise, 
To  keep  these  limbs  and  to  preserve  these  eyes. 

Mead,  of  whom  Dr.  Johnson  remarked  that  he  "lived 
more  in  the  broad  sunshine  of  life  than  almost  any  man," 
was  singularly  fortunate  in  having  Pope  for  his  admirer  at 
the  outset,  and  Johnson  for  his  eulogist  in  the  close  of  his 
career.  If  he  could  not  stoop  to  the  arts  of  the  flatterer, 
Johnson  delighted  in  giving  sincere  praise,  and  in  clothing 
it  with  the  language  most  likely  to  render  it  acceptable  to 
its  object.  When  James  needed  the  aid  of  a  master  of  style 
for  the  composition  of  the  dedicatory  letter  that  should  dis- 
pose Mead  to  regard  the  "Medicinal  Dictionary"  with  favor, 
he  did  well  to  seek  Johnson,  whose  cordial  enjoyment  of  the 
task  makes  itself  felt  in  stately  periods  of  the  epistle. 

Sir — That  the  "Medicinal  Dictionary"  is  dedicated  to  you  is  to 
be  imputed  only  to  your  reputation  for  superior  skill  in  those  sci- 
ences which  I  have  endeavoured  to  explain  and  to  facilitate ;  and  you 
are,  therefore,  to  consider  the  address,  if  it  be  agreeable  to  you,  as 
one  of  the  rewards  of  merit ;  and,  if  otherwise,  as  one  of  the  incon- 
veniences of  eminence. 

However  you  shall  receive  it,  my  design  cannot  be  disappointed, 
because  this  public  appeal  to  your  judgment  will  show  that  I  do 
not  found  my  hopes  of  approbation  upon  the  ignorance  of  my  read- 
ers, and  that  I  fear  his  censure  least  whose  knowledge  is  the  most 
extensive.    I  am,  sir,  your  most  obedient  and  humble  servant, 

R.  James. 

There  is  no  need  to  inquire  in  what  regard  the  physician 
held  the  "Medicinal  Dictionary,"  thus  introduced  to  his 
notice  by  a  man  of  letters  who,  far  from  confining  his  grati- 
tude for  medical  service  to  services  rendered  by  physicians, 
honored  his  apothecary  with  a  poem. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  POLITICIANS 

N  1745 — the  year  so  fruitful  of  dismay  to  the  Jaco- 
bites and  of  discomfort  to  the  most  cautious  adher- 
ents of  an  irretrievably  routed  party — Dr.  Beau- 
ford  was  summoned  before  the  Privy  Council  to 
answer  searching  questions  respecting  his  intercourse  with 
his  Jacobite  patients,  and  more  particularly  respecting  his 
confidential  dealings  with  Lord  Barrymore.  But  the  physi- 
cian proved  so  equal  to  the  occasion  that  he  soon  made  the 
lords  of  the  Council  think  they  might  as  well  tell  him  to  go 
about  his  business. 

"You  know  Lord  Barrymore  ?"  asked  one  of  the  lords. 

"Intimately — most  intimately,"  answered  the  doctor,  in 
the  tone  of  a  man  bent  on  making  a  clean  breast  and  full 
confession. 

"You  are  continually  with  him?" 

"We  dine  together  almost  daily  when  his  lordship  is  in 
town,"  replied  the  witness,  with  a  growing  air  of  eager 
frankness. 

"What  do  you  talk  about?" 

"Eating  and  drinking,  my  lord." 

"And  what  else?" 

"Well,  my  lord,"  was  the  answer,  preluded  by  a  smile 
that,  promising  some  startling  revelation,  seemed  to  indi- 
cate the  doctor's  inability  to  fence  with  so  direct  a  ques- 
tioner, "we  talk  about — drinking  and  eating." 

"Ay,  ay,  but  what  else  ?" 

"What  else,  my  lord !"  replied  the  physician,  with  a  deli- 
cious assumption  of  simplicity  and  astonishment ;  "we  never 
talk  of  anything  but  eating  and  drinking  and  drinking  and 
eating." 

It  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  when  the  two  friends 


yS  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

pledged  "the  King"  in  their  cups,  they  did  not  drink  to  King 
George,  and  that  gossip  about  cookery  was  seasoned  with 
piquant  talk  in  vindication  of  their  "principles,"  and  to  the 
discredit  of  Hanoverian  traitors. 

Dr.  Beauford  lived  in  times  when  politicians  were  noth- 
ing when  they  were  not  "thorough,"  and  doctors  without 
political  convictions  and  the  courage  to  proclaim  them  could 
not  hope  to  have  many  patients.  One  of  Beauford's  pro- 
fessional contemporaries  was  Dr.  Barrowby — the  lively  wit 
who  all  the  year  round  would  sooner  sacrifice  a  mere  ac- 
quaintance than  a  good  jest,  and  in  seasons  of  hotly-con- 
tested elections  would  throw  his  best  friend  over  to  do  his 
party  a  good  turn.  Barrowby  (not  Abernethy,  as  the  blun- 
derers insist)  was  the  doctor  who,  whilst  canvassing  for  a 
place  on  the  staff  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  converted 
a  powerful  well-wisher  into  a  vehement  opponent  by  a 
droll  freak  of  humorous  insolence. 

"Well,  friend,  what  is  your  business?"  asked  the  Snow 
Hill  grocer,  strutting  up  the  shop,  which  Barrowby  had  en- 
tered because  the  tradesman  was  a  governor  of  the  hospital. 

Offended  by  the  pompous  and  patronizing  air  of  the  man, 
who  obviously  hoped  for  more  than  his  proper  meed  of 
civility,  Barrowby,  instead  of  suing  for  his  vote  and  influ- 
ence, fixed  him  with  a  keen  glance,  and  then  answered, 
slowly,  "I  want  a  pound  of  plums.  Be  good  enough  to  put 
them  up  quickly." 

Barrowby's  political  fervor  displayed  itself  characteristic- 
ally in  1749  at  the  Westminster  election,  when  Lord  Tren- 
tham  and  Sir  George  Vandeput  fought  for  the  vacant  seat 
with  the  vehemence  expected  of  Westminster  candidates  in 
the  good  old  times.  Joe  Weatherby.  the  whilom  notorious 
landlord  of  the  Ben  Jonson's  Head  in  Russell  Street,  was 
sick  even  to  death,  whilst  the  talk  of  his  neighbors  all 
turned  on  the  chances  of  the  two  rival  politicians,  and  mis- 
led by  the  language  of  Mrs.  Weatherby,  who  was  inces- 
santly lamenting  her  husband's  inability  from  sickness  to 
record  his  vote  for  Lord  Trentham,  Barrowby  (in  at- 
tendance on  the  invalid)  had  declared  that  for  Joe  in  his 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  79 

perilous  condition  to  go  to  the  polling  booth  would  be  for 
him  to  drive  the  last  nail  into  his  coffin.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, Barrowby,  on  paying  his  patient  a  visit,  on  the 
last  polling  day,  was  not  a  little  astonished  to  find  him  up 
and  dressed  and  ready  for  a  drive  to  his  proper  booth. 

"What  are  you  after?"  cried  Barrowby. 

"I  am  going  to  poll,"  Joe  answered  faintly. 

"To  poll !  You  are  mad !  Get  to  bed  instantly.  I  won't 
stand  by  and  let  you  kill  yourself." 

"Dear  Doctor,"  the  fever-stricken  patient  pleaded,  "let 
me  have  my  wish.  Now  that  my  wife  has  gone  out  for  the 
day  I  should  like  to  get  as  far  as  Covent  Garden  and  vote 
for  Sir  George." 

"How,  Joe,  what  d'you  mean?     Sir  George?" 

"Yes,  sir,  my  mistress  is  all  for  his  lordship,  but  I  am  a 
Vandeput  man." 

The  case  was  altered.  Seeing  a  sudden  change  for  the 
better  in  his  patient,  Barrowby  exclaimed,  "Wait  a  minute, 
nurse.  You  needn't  be  in  such  haste  to  pull  ofif  his  stock- 
ings. Here,  Joe,  let's  feel  your  pulse.  One,  two,  three — 
'pon  my  honor,  Joe,  it's  a  good  pulse ;  it's  much  firmer  than 
it  was  yesterday ;  it  beats  like  a  hammer.  Those  new  pills 
have  done  you  a  vast  deal  of  good.    You're  another  man." 

"Sure  I  am,  doctor,"  rejoined  Joe  imploringly,  "and  I 
should  so  like  to  vote  for  Sir  George." 

"Well,  Joe,"  returned  the  doctor,  after  a  moment's  con- 
sideration, "as  you  are  so  bent  on  going  to  this  election  it 
would  be  a  pity  for  you  to  be  disappointed.  It's  a  fine  day, 
and  the  drive  may  do  you  good.  So  as  it's  to  be  done  let  it 
be  done  quickly.  Here,  my  good  fellow,  be  quick  now  that 
Mrs.  Weatherby  is  out  of  the  way.  I  will  take  you  to  Co- 
vent  Garden  in  my  chariot,  and  bring  you  back  in  ten 
minutes." 

Delighted  with  his  doctor's  condescension,  Weatherby 
went  off  to  Covent  Garden,  like  a  gentleman,  voted  on  the 
"right  side/'  returned  to  his  house  in  triumph,  and  died  two 
hours  afterwards,  sinking  rapidly  under  the  reproaches  of 
his  wife  and  her  friends  of  the  Court  party. 


8b  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

The  manner  of  Barrowby's  death  was  as  remarkable  as 
that  of  the  patient  for  whose  demise  he  was  perhaps  less  ac- 
countable than  people  imagined.  Called  away  to  a  patient 
from  a  party,  where  he  had  been  talking  and  laughing  with 
even  more  than  his  usual  vivacity,  the  too  light-hearted  phy- 
sician stepped  into  the  chariot  that  had  taken  Joe  Weatherby 
to  Covent  Garden.  A  few  minutes  later,  on  opening  the 
door  of  the  carriage,  the  doctor's  footman  found  his  master 
dead  from  a  stroke  of  apoplexy. 

The  Catholics  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  in  no  small 
degree  responsible  for  the  political  zeal  that  for  successive 
generations  distinguished  the  leaders  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession, alike  in  London  and  the  chief  provincial  towns. 
It  is  certain  that  when  they  could  no  longer  correspond 
secretly  by  means  of  their  priests,  the  Catholic  families 
availed  themselves  of  their  doctors  as  agents  for  clandestine 
intercommunication.  Certain  also  is  it  that  in  times  prolific 
of  politico-religious  dissensions  the  other  religious  parties 
followed  the  example  set  them  by  the  Catholics,  till  it  came 
to  be  taken  as  a  matter  of  course  that  a  successful  physician 
was  a  political  partisan.  Charles  II.  may  have  exaggerated 
the  activity  and  influence  of  the  faculty  in  the  intrigues  of 
parties,  but  he  had  grounds  for  declaring  that  Dr.  Lower, 
Nell  Gwynn's  physician,  did  more  mischief  than  a  troop  of 
horses.  Whilst  Lower  held  the  confidence  of  the  Whigs, 
Thomas  Short  was  the  physician  in  whom  the  Catholics  of 
Charles  II.'s  London  delighted.  When  Lower  had  passed 
from  the  scenes  of  his  political  energy,  his  place  was  sup- 
plied by  Garth,  of  whom  Swift  wrote  in  the  "Journal  to 
Stella"  under  date  November  17th,  171 1,  "This  is  Queen 
Elizabeth's  birthday  usually  kept  in  town  by  apprentices, 
etc. ;  but  the  Whigs  designed  a  mighty  procession  by  mid- 
night, and  had  laid  out  a  thousand  pounds  to  dress  up  the 
pope,  devil,  cardinals,  Sacheverel,  etc.,  and  carry  them  with 
torches  about  and  bum  them.  They  did  it  by  contribution. 
Garth  gave  five  guineas ;  Dr.  Garth  I  mean,  if  ever  you  heard 
of  him.  But  they  were  seized  by  order  from  the  secretary. 
The  figures  are  now  at  the  secretary's  office  at  Whitehall. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  8i 

I  design  to  see  them  if  I  can."  Garth  was  followed  by  Mead, 
Mead  by  Monsey,  and  each  of  the  three  had  medical  con- 
temporaries, of  whom  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether 
they  valued  themselves  chiefly  for  being  eminent  physicians 
or  for  being  eminent  Whigs.  On  the  other  side  medical 
biography  points  to  Radcliff  e,  Arbuthnot,  Drake,  and  Freind. 
But  of  all  the  notable  doctors  of  the  Tory  camp,  Radcliffe 
was  by  far  the  most  important  and  conspicuous  personage — 
the  most  successful  within  the  lines  of  his  special  calling, 
and  the  most  powerful  outside  those  lines.  In  politics  Rad- 
cliflfe  was  thorough;  even  the  Jacobites  declared  him  account- 
able for  Queen  Anne's  death,  and  denounced  him  as  her 
"murderer."  No  one  doubted  that  his  heart  was  true  to  the 
"king  over  the  water."  He  was  too  shrewd  and  robust  a 
man,  however,  to  yield  to  the  sophistries  and  worldly  sugges- 
tions by  which  Obadiah  Walker  thought  to  wheedle  him  into 
Romanism:  "The  advantages,"  he  wrote  to  Walker  in 
1688 — year  of  sore  trial  to  ambition  and  weak-kneed  Protes- 
tants— "may  be  very  great,  for  all  that  I  know ;  God  Al- 
mighty can  do  much,  and  so  can  the  king ;  but  you'll  pardon 
me  if  I  cease  to  speak  like  a  physician  for  once,  and  with  an 
air  of  gravity  am  very  apprehensive  that  I  may  anger  the 
one  in  being  too  complaisant  to  the  other."  But  though  he 
repelled  thus  firmly  the  man  who  had  the  king's  favor,  Rad- 
cliflFe  cherished  a  generous  affection  for  the  master  of  Uni- 
versity, and  displayed  it  with  singular  munificence  and  stead- 
iness when,  driven  from  his  college  and  fallen  on  evil  days, 
the  renegade  had  lost  the  power  to  push  his  friends'  for- 
tunes. From  the  date  of  his  withdrawal  from  Oxford,  a 
broken  and  dishonored  man.  Walker  subsisted  on  a  handsome 
allowance  from  the  money-loving  doctor,  who  in  later  time 
defrayed  the  charges  of  his  interment  in  St.  Pancras  church- 
yard, and  years  after  his  death  placed  a  monument  to  his 
memory. 

It  may  not,  however,  be  imagined  that  the  political  doc- 
tors of  olden  time  found  all  their  patients  amongst  those 
who  agreed  with  them  in  politics.  Mead  was  largely  em- 
ployed by  families  that  abhorred  his  party.    Of  the  £7,000 


83        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

(equal  to  £15,000  or  ii6,ooo  of  Victorian  money)  which  he 
earned  in  one  of  his  most  fortunate  years,  at  least  £2,000 
came  to  him  from  the  pockets  of  Tories.  But  Radcliffe  was 
a  still  more  remarkable  example  of  a  physician  who  despoiled 
his  political  adversaries  in  the  way  of  professional  service. 
Coming  to  town  when  Lower  was  falling  out  of  favor  with 
the  Whigs,  and  Short  was  losing  his  hold  on  the  Catholics, 
Radcliffe  had  not  been  long  in  London  before  Blackmore 
and  Sir  Edward  Hannes  had  as  much  reason  as  Whistler 
and  Sir  Edmund  King  for  being  jealous  of  his  success ;  and 
in  the  days  of  his  supremacy  the  overbearing  and  caustic 
doctor  was  employed  by  the  Whigs  whom  he  detested  almost 
as  much  as  by  the  Tories  whom  he  approved.  Certainly  he 
was  at  small  pains  to  conciliate  the  leaders  of  either  party. 
When  he  told  Mead  to  treat  the  world  ill  if  he  would  have  it 
treat  him  well,  the  dying  doctor  gave  council  in  harmony 
with  his  own  practise  and  experience.  Many  of  the  extrava- 
gant stories  told  of  Abernethy's  rudeness  to  his  patients  were 
altogether  inappropriate  to  the  great  surgeon,  who  was  by  no 
means  the  savage  he  has  been  represented,  but  were  pre- 
cisely true  of  the  Jacobite  physician  who,  on  seeing  WilHam 
IIL's  dropsical  ankles  for  the  first  time,  exclaimed  with 
brutal  sincerity,  "I  would  not  have  your  Majesty's  legs  for 
your  three  kingdoms."  Cynical  and  harsh  to  men,  Radcliffe 
was  no  less  sarcastic  and  disdainful  to  women.  To  a  lady 
of  high  rank,  whose  speech  caused  him  to  think  her  a  ro- 
mantic and  fanciful  creature,  he  remarked,  "Phew,  madam, 
you  should  curl  your  hair  with  a  ballad." 

Perhaps  it  was  to  Radcliffe's  credit  that  he  was  even  less 
complaisant  to  gentlewomen  of  the  highest  quality  than  to 
gentlewomen  of  no  quality  in  particular.  The  circumstances 
that  resulted  in  his  dismissal  from  the  Princess  Anne  of 
Denmark's  service  show  how  little  he  humored  the  greatest 
of  "the  great."  Shortly  after  Queen  Mary's  death,  which 
was  generally  spoken  of  at  the  same  time  to  his  credit  and 
discredit,  he  was  sitting  with  some  friends  and  wine  in  his 
favorite  tavern,  when  a  courtly  messenger  ran  in  upon  him 
with  a  request  that  he  would  hasten  to  St.  James's  Palace  to 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  83 

prescribe  for  the  Princess  of  Denmark,  who  was  seriously 
indisposed.  "Good  Sir,  tell  her  Highness  I'll  come  when  I 
have  had  another  bottle,"  the  doctor  replied,  in  a  voice 
audible,  as  it  was  intended  to  be,  to  the  speaker's  convivial 
companions  and  every  one  else  in  the  coffee-room.  A  quarter 
of  an  hour  later,  when  the  equerry  appeared  with  a  still  more 
urgent  request  that  the  physician  would  hasten  to  his  august 
patient,  who  was  momentarily  getting  worse,  Radcliffe, 
under  the  influence  of  his  second  bottle,  declared  he  should 
visit  the  Princess  quite  soon  enough  if  he  called  on  her  next 
day,  adding :  "Tell  her  Royal  Highness  that  her  distemper  is 
nothing  but  vapors.  She's  in  as  good  a  state  of  health  as  any 
woman  breathing,  only  she  can't  make  up  her  mind  to  be- 
lieve it." 

On  the  morrow,  when  he  was  met  in  an  ante-room  of  the 
Princess's  apartments  in  St.  James's  Palace  with  an  an- 
nouncement that  he  had  been  dismissed  from  his  post  and 
succeeded  in  it  by  his  rival,  Dr.  Gibbons,  Radcliffe  was 
seized  with  furious  chagrin,  that  caused  him  to  tell  his  pa- 
tients how  atrociously  he  had  been  treated  by  the  Princess, 
who  had  positively  had  the  ingratitude  to  send  for  a  doctor 
who  would  not  condescend  to  visit  her  when  she  wished  to 
see  him.  Of  course,  the  physician  who  succeeded  him  in 
the  Princess's  confidence  also  came  in  for  a  liberal  allowance 
of  abuse  from  this  extremely  ill-used  gentleman.  Gibbons 
was  an  imbecile,  a  dolt,  an  old  woman  who  could  order  slops 
and  broths,  and  was  really  rather  a  clever  hand  at  making 
diet-drinks,  but  knew  no  more  than  any  other  nurse  of  the 
science  of  medicine.  Nurse  Gibbons  had  got  a  new  nursery 
to  look  after;  Nurse  Gibbons  would  soon  find  it  no  easy 
task  to  minister  to  her  new  mistress ;  Nurse  Gibbons  was 
just  fit  to  wait  on  a  woman  who  fancied  herself  ill  when 
she  was  strong  as  any  horse ;  Nurse  Gibbons  would  be 
troubled  how  to  please  her  new  employer,  who  was  no  gentle- 
woman to  take  kindly  to  slops  and  diet-drinks. 

Neither  at  the  moment  of  the  rupture  nor  in  later  time  did 
Radcliffe's  exclusion  from  the  Princess's  household  lower 
him  in  social  regard  or  injure  him  in  his  practise.    At  the 


84  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

moment  when  the  town  was  laughing  over  his  wild  talk 
about  Nurse  Gibbons  and  the  woman  who  suffered  from 
"the  vapors,"  the  affair  was  talked  of  less  to  the  physician's 
discredit  than  as  an  example  of  the  Princess's  want  of  dis- 
cretion. What  prudent  woman,  princess  or  no  princess,  it 
was  asked,  would  have  quarreled  with  the  doctor  who  was 
alike  powerful  to  rescue  Tories  and  Whigs  from  the  jaws  of 
death  ?  How  could  the  matter  affect  the  doctor  injuriously 
in  later  time,  when  it  was  known  that,  though  regard  for 
her  own  dignity  precluded  her  from  recalling  the  physician 
who  had  treated  her  with  such  outrageous  insolence,  the 
august  gentlewoman  (as  Princess  and  afterwards  as  Queen) 
used  to  order  Gibbons's  slops  to  be  thrown  into  their  appro- 
priate pail,  and  even  authorized  her  ladies-in-waiting  to 
consult  Dr.  Radcliffe  about  her  health.  Perhaps  the  most 
curious  matter  of  the  Jacobite  doctor's  strange  story  was 
that  the  superstitious  respect  in  which  he  was  held  by  the 
Whigs  was  coupled  with  a  belief  on  their  part  that  he  often 
neglected  to  visit  sick  Whigs  out  of  spite,  and  was,  more- 
over, quite  capable,  after  coming  to  their  beds,  of  letting 
them  die  from  pure  malignity  to  their  party,  when  he  knew 
well  how  to  save  them.  Often  one  heard  it  said  of  him, 
"He  might  have  saved  poor  Tom  if  he  had  liked,  only  poor 
Tom  was  a  Whig,  and  so  he  left  him  die."  Queen  Mary 
died  because,  though  he  came  to  her  in  her  last  sickness,  he 
would  not  put  out  all  his  strength  and  "do  all  he  knew"  to 
save  her.  In  a  passage  of  his  "History" — a  passage  with- 
held from  the  printed  work  but  to  be  found  in  the  Harleian 
MSS. — Bishop  Burnet  remarked,  "I  will  not  enter  into  an- 
other province,  nor  go  out  of  my  profession,  and  so  will  say 
no  more  of  the  physician's  part,  but  that  it  was  universally 
condemned,  so  that  the  Queen's  death  was  imputed  to  the  un- 
skilfulness  and  unwillingness  of  Dr.  Radcliffe,  an  impious 
and  vicious  man,  who  hated  the  Queen  much,  but  virtue  and 
religion  more.  He  was  a  professed  Jacobite,  and  was  by 
many  thought  a  very  bad  physician,  but  others  cried  him  up 
to  the  highest  degree  imaginable.  He  was  called  for,  and 
it  appeared  that  his  opinion  was  depended  on.    Other  physi- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  85 

cians  were  called  in  when  it  was  too  late."  The  reader  may 
be  left  to  imagine  what  preposterous  things  were  believed 
and  said  by  the  multitude  of  the  Jacobite  doctor,  when  a  man 
of  Burnet's  intelligence  and  culture  could  write  in  this  strain 
of  the  Queen's  chief  medical  attendant. 

The  story  of  Radcliffe's  murder  of  Queen  Anne  is  even 
more  amusing.  When  the  Queen's  "hour"  was  drawing 
nigh,  the  ladies,  who  had  so  often  consulted  about  their  mis- 
tress "under  the  rose,"  and  half  a  hundred  equally  trans- 
parent and  ridiculous  artifices,  v/ere  urgent  that  the  great 
physician — the  only  man  able  to  recover  her  Majesty — 
should  be  openly  sent  for  and  entreated  to  dismiss  his  long- 
nursed  animosity  against  his  royal  mistress,  and  out  of  his 
magnanimity  to  save  her,  the  country,  and  the  Jacobite  party 
from  imminent  destruction.  The  advice  of  the  ladies  was  so 
far  taken  that  Lady  Masham  ventured  to  dispatch  an  equally 
urgent  and  conciliatory  message  to  Radcliffe,  then  lying  at 
his  country  house  in  Carshalton.  But  the  doctor,  already 
stricken  with  the  mortal  illness  that  killed  him  within  three 
months  of  the  Queen's  death,  could  only  answer  that  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  wait  on  her  Majesty.  The  doctor's 
reply  to  Lady  Masham's  summons  was  regarded  by  the 
courtiers  and  gossips  as  the  Queen's  death-warrant.  "She 
continued,"  Charles  Ford  wrote  to  Swift  in  the  body  of  a 
letter  that  must  have  set  the  dean  chuckling,  "ill  the  whole 
day.  In  the  evening  I  spoke  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  and  he  told 
me  that  he  did  not  think  her  distemper  was  desperate.  Rad- 
cliffe was  sent  for  to  Carshalton  about  noon  by  order  of  the 
Council,  but  said  he  had  taken  physic  and  could  not  come. 
In  all  probability  he  had  saved  her  life,  for  I  am  told  that 
the  late  Lord  Gower  had  been  often  in  the  condition  with 
the  gout  in  the  head,  and  Radcliffe  kept  him  alive  many 
years  after."  All  the  comedy  of  this  epistle,  written,  any 
one  would  infer  from  the  body  of  the  document,  after  the 
Queen's  death,  is  not  apparent  to  the  reader  till  he  comes  to 
the  postscript,  which  gives  the  latest  intelligence  in  these 
words:  "The  Queen  is  something  better,  and  the  Council 
again  adjourned  till  eight  in  the  morning."     The  Queen, 


86  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

however,  died  on  the  following  day,  when  murmurs  were 
heard  in  every  quarter  of  the  town  against  the  disloyal  and 
impious  physician  who  had  lingered  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
rural  retreat  when  by  journeying  to  town  he  might  have  pro- 
longed her  days  and  saved  the  country  from  the  grasp  of  the 
Hanoverian  faction.  What  wonder  that  the  public  exag- 
gerated the  doctor's  power  in  this  manner  when  Arbuthnot, 
a  Tory  physician,  could  gravely  tell  Swift  of  the  malicious 
delight  taken  by  Radcliffe  "in  preserving  my  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Holt's  wife,  whom  he  attended  out  of  spite  to  her 
husband,  who  wished  her  dead."  For  the  moment  the 
Whigs,  who  gained  so  much,  and  the  Tories,  who  lost  even 
more  by  the  Queen's  demise,  generally  concurred  in  the 
opinion  that  had  Radcliffe  (the  Tory)  hastened  to  her  side 
as  true  Tory  should  have  done,  instead  of  leaving  her  in  a 
position  of  which  young  Dr.  Mead  (the  Whig)  made  him- 
self the  master,  good  Queen  Anne  would  still  have  been  in 
life  and  power.  For  some  weeks  the  outcry  against  Rad- 
cliffe  was  superlatively  violent.  In  the  House  of  Commons 
it  was  moved  that  the  physician,  as  one  of  the  representa- 
tives of  Buckingham,  should  be  summoned  to  attend  in  his 
place  in  order  that  he  should  be  fitly  censured  by  the  House 
for  neglecting  to  attend  her  late  Majesty,  and  thereby  con- 
tributing to  the  causes  of  her  death — a  proposal  all  the  more 
painful  to  the  doctor  because  it  proceeded  from  a  baronet 
whom  he  had  long  numbered  amongst  his  closest  friends, 
and  with  whom,  as  he  pathetically  remarked  in  the  ensuing 
letter,  he  had  "drunk  many  hundred  bottles." 

"Dear  Sir/'  the  physician  wrote  from  Carshalton  on  Au- 
gust 7th,  1714,  "I  could  not  have  thought  so  old  an  ac- 
quaintance and  so  good  a  friend  as  Sir  John  always  professed 
himself  would  have  made  such  a  motion  against  me.  God 
knows,  my  will  to  do  her  Majesty  any  service  has  ever  got 
the  start  of  my  ability,  and  I  have  nothing  that  gives  me 
greater  anxiety  and  trouble  than  the  death  of  that  great  and 
glorious  princess.  I  must  do  that  justice  to  the  physicians 
that  attended  her  in  her  illness,  from  a  sight  of  the  method 
that  was  taken  from  her  preservations  transmitted  to  me  by 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  87 

Dr.  Mead,  as  to  declare  nothing  was  omitted  for  her  preser- 
vation, but  the  people  about  her — the  plagues  of  Egypt  fall 
upon  them! — put  it  out  of  the  power  of  physick  to  be  of  any 
benefit  to  her.  I  know  the  nature  of  attending  crowned 
heads  to  their  last  moments  too  well  to  be  fond  of  waiting 
upon  them  without  being  sent  for  by  a  proper  authority. 
You  have  heard  of  pardons  being  signed  for  physicians  be- 
fore a  sovereign's  demise.  However,  as  ill  as  I  was,  I 
would  have  gone  to  the  Queen  in  a  horse-litter  had  either 
her  Majesty,  or  those  in  commission  next  to  her,  com- 
manded me  so  to  do.  You  may  tell  Sir  John  as  much,  and 
assure  him  from  me  that  his  zeal  for  her  Majesty  will  not 
excuse  his  ill-usage  of  a  friend  with  whom  he  has  drunk 
many  hundred  bottles,  and  who  cannot,  even  after  this 
breach  of  the  good  understanding  that  was  ever  preserved 
between  us,  but  have  a  very  good  esteem  for  him." 

Whilst  it  was  under  consideration  whether  Radcliffe 
should  be  formally  censured  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
there  is  evidence  (albeit  scarcely  conclusive  evidence)  that 
thirteen  passionate  fools  made  a  resolve  and  compact  with 
one  another  to  waylay  the  physician  on  his  road  from  Car- 
shalton  to  Croydon  and  avenge  the  Queen's  death  with  his 
assassination.  One  is  reluctant  to  believe  that  thirteen  Eng- 
lishmen could  have  been  found  in  the  first  year  of  George  I. 
capable  of  planning  so  monstrous  an  outbreak  of  fanatical 
malevolence.  But  if  he  was  not  in  this  matter  the  victim 
of  a  cruel  and  stupid  hoax,  it  must  be  taken  for  true  his- 
tory that  the  physician  was  saved  from  a  violent  death,  and 
preserved  for  several  more  weeks  of  torture  from  an  over- 
powering malady  by  this  curious  epistle : 

"Doctor, — Tho'  I  am  no  friend  of  yours,  but  on  the  con- 
trary one  that  could  wish  your  destruction  in  a  legal  way  for 
not  preventing  the  death  of  our  most  excellent  Queen,  whom 
you  had  it  in  your  power  to  save,  yet  I  have  such  an  aversion 
to  taking  away  men's  lives  unfairly,  as  to  acquaint  you  that, 
if  you  go  to  meet  the  gentleman  you  have  appointed  to  dine 
with  at  the  Greyhound,  in  Croydon,  on  Thursday  next,  you 
will  be  most  certainly  murthered.    I  am  one  of  the  persons 


88  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

engaged  in  the  conspiracy,  with  twelve  more,  who  are  re- 
solved to  sacrifice  you  to  the  ghost  of  her  late  Majesty,  that 
cries  aloud  for  blood;  therefore,  neither  stir  out  of  doors  that 
day,  nor  any  other,  nor  think  of  exchanging  your  present 
abode  for  your  house  at  Hammersmith,  since  there  and 
everywhere  else  we  shall  be  in  quest  of  you.  I  am  touched 
with  remorse,  and  give  you  this  notice ;  but  take  care  of 
yourself,  lest  I  repent  of  it,  and  give  proofs  of  so  doing  by 
having  it  in  my  power  to  destroy  you,  who  am  your  sworn 
enemy.  N.  G." 

No  hoax  was  suspected  in  this  strange  epistle  by  its  re- 
cipient, who,  keeping  himself  a  close  prisoner  at  Carshalton, 
though  he  was  very  desirous  of  paying  London  another  visit, 
spent  the  last  weeks  of  his  life  in  lively  fear  of  assassination 
— an  apprehension  that,  aggravating  the  irritability  and 
gloom  begotten  of  gout,  was  doubtless  in  some  degree  ac- 
countable for  the  fatal  course  of  his  bodily  disorder.  Doleful 
in  its  circumstances,  the  conclusion  of  this  famous  physi- 
cian's career  would  have  been  even  more  dismal  had  it  not 
been  for  the  sympathetic  attentiveness  of  several  of  his  old 
medical  friends,  who,  to  the  neglect  of  their  patients  and 
professional  interests,  paid  him  frequent  visits.  Mead's 
horses  were  often  seen  on  the  road  from  London  to  Carshal- 
ton during  those  mournful  weeks,  and  on  one  of  his  fre- 
quent journeys  to  his  failing  patron  and  friend,  the  young 
and  rapidly  rising  doctor  took  with  him  the  beautiful  Bible, 
which  had  in  former  times  been  perused  by  William  IH.  In 
one  of  the  Lansdowne  MSS.  Kennet  relates  that  on  his  last 
visit  to  his  patient  at  Carshalton,  Mead  had  occasion  to  ob- 
serve that  the  dying  man  had  turned  over  the  leaves  of  the 
seasonable  present  from  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  to  the 
middle  of  Exodus,  "Whence,"  observes  the  writer  of  the 
memorandum,  "it  might  be  inferred  that  he  had  never  before 
read  the  Scriptures,  as  I  doubt  must  be  inferred  of  Dr. 
Linacre,  from  the  account  given  by  Sir  John  Cheke."  It 
was  thus  that  the  great  physician  passed  at  a  moment  of  un- 
merited discredit  from  a  generation  that  had  formerly  hon- 
ored him  far  above  his  deserts,  "falling  a  victim,"  as  his 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  89 

original  biographer  assures  his  smiling  readers,  "to  the  in- 
gratitude of  a  thankless  world  and  the  fury  of  the  gout." 

It  was  fortunate  for  the  young  physician  who,  taking  pos- 
session of  Radcliffe's  house  in  Bloomsbury  Square,  suc- 
ceeded also  to  his  practise^  that  the  Jacobite  coteries  were  too 
indignant  with  the  doctor  at  Carshalton  to  give  much 
thought  to  the  part  taken  At  the  Queen's  death-bed  by  his 
protege.  For  a  brief  hour  indeed  it  was  doubtful  whether 
the  Tory  doctor,  who  had  neglected  his  sovereign  in  her 
dying  moments,  or  the  young  Whig  doctor,  who  hastened 
to  her  chamber  with  disloyal  alacrity,  should  be  sacrificed  to 
social  clamor.  If  the  Queen  had  suffered  from  the  neglect 
of  the  older  culprit,  it  was  whispered  that  she  had  suffered 
in  a  still  greater  degree  from  the  young  and  self-confident 
intruder,  who  disheartened  her  Tory  medical  attendants  by 
declaring  at  his  first  interview  with  them  that  all  their  talk 
was  idle  and  all  their  suggestions  bootless,  as  her  Majesty 
was  already  sinking.  Whispers  went  about  that  this  mourn- 
ful opinion  was  delivered  with  the  eagerness  of  a  man  who 
delighted  in  the  prospect  and  was  set  on  doing  everything  to 
verify  his  prediction.  The  whisperers  told  also  how  the 
young  Whig  doctor's  countenance  betrayed  his  chagrin 
when,  on  being  again  blooded,  the  royal  patient  recovered 
for  a  short  while  her  consciousness  and  speech.  It  was  the 
conviction  of  many  persons  that  even  at  that  late  moment 
her  Majesty  would  have  rallied  for  weeks — and  if  for  weeks, 
why  not  for  years? — had  this  young  Whig  doctor  been  sil- 
enced and  driven  from  the  palace,  so  that  the  Tory  doctors, 
who  lost  their  nerve  and  wits  under  his  audacious  discour- 
agements, could  have  had  fair  play. 

"This  morning,"  Charles  Ford  wrote  to  Swift,  "when  I 
went  there  before  nine,  they  told  me  she  was  just  expiring. 
That  account  continued  above  three  hours,  and  a  report  was 
carried  to  town  that  she  was  actually  dead.  She  was  not 
prayed  for  even  in  her  own  chapel  at  St.  James's ;  and  what 
is  more  infamous  ( !)  stocks  rose  three  per  cent,  upon  it  in 
the  city.  Before  I  came  away  she  had  recovered  a  warmth 
in  her  breast  and  one  of  her  arms,  and  all  the  doctors  agreed 


90         DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

she  would,  in  all  probability,  hold  out  till  to-morrow — except 
Meade,  who  pronounced  several  hours  before  she  could  not 
live  ten  minutes,  and  seems  uneasy  it  did  not  happen  so." 
Certain  it  is  that  the  Jacobites  had  no  reason  to  thank  Mead, 
and  that  the  Whigs  had  cause  to  speak  gratefully  of  him. 
Miss  Strickland  did  not  go  beyond  the  evidence  in  saying, 
"It  has  always  been  considered  that  the  prompt  boldness  of 
this  political  physician  occasioned  the  peaceable  proclamation 
of  George  I."  After  that  event  the  murmurs  against  Mead 
soon  died  away.  Whilst  the  triumphant  Whigs,  in  gratitude 
for  his  action  at  the  trying  moment,  proclaimed  him  their 
physician-in-chief,  it  was  conceded  by  the  most  fervid  Jacob- 
ites that  if  he  had  served  the  Queen  ill  he  had  served  his 
party  well,  whereas  the  treacherous  Radcliffe  had  been  aUke 
false  to  his  Queen  and  his  "friends."  Much  has  been  writ- 
ten of  courtiers  living  on  the  breath  of  princes.  What  more 
can  the  faculty  require  in  the  way  of  worldly  homage  when 
history  says  so  much  of  princes  living  and  parties  rising  to 
triumph  at  the  will  of  doctors  ? 

If  it  would  be  a  great  error  to  think  that  the  famous  polit- 
ical doctors  found  their  patients  only  within  the  lines  of 
their  respective  parties,  it  would  be  even  a  greater  mistake  to 
imagine  that  the  same  doctors  lived  more  harmoniously  with 
the  physicians  who  agreed  with  them  than  with  the  physi- 
cians who  differed  from  them  in  politics.  On  the  contrary, 
it  would  appear  from  some  of  the  most  piquant  anecdotes 
of  the  medical  biographers,  that  concord  on  questions  of 
State  tended  to  aggravate  the  jealousies  and  sharpen  the 
spites  of  medical  competitors.  If  he  railed  at  Sir  Edward 
Hannes  for  being  the  son  of  a  basket-maker,  and  told  Sir 
Richard  Blackmore  (the  whilom  schoolmaster)  that  he  ought 
to  be  birched  with  one  of  his  own  rods,  Radcliffe  hated  the 
Tory  physician,  James  Drake,  more  cordially  than  he  hated 
Hannes  or  Blackmore,  or  any  other  doctor  of  the  Whig  crew. 
Having  lived  on  the  worst  of  unfriendly  terms  with  most  of 
his  Tory  competitors,  the  Jacobite  physician  took  a  young 
Whig  for  his  special  favorite  and  protege.  Still  the  doctor 
who  befriended  Obadiah  Walker  with  noble  f ree-handedness, 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  91 

was  not  wanting  in  generous  and  delicate  munificence  to 
the  Tory  physician  whom  he  had  done  his  best  to  ruin,  and 
for  whose  ruin  he  was  largely  accountable.  "Let  him,"  he 
said  to  a  lady,  by  whose  hands  he  sent  fifty  guineas  to  his 
vanquished  and  embarrassed  rival,  "by  no  means  be  told 
whence  the  money  comes.  Drake  is  a  gentleman,  and  has 
often  done  his  best  to  hurt  me.  He  could,  therefore,  by  no 
means  brook  the  receipt  of  a  benefit  from  a  person  whom  he 
has  treated  so  ill  as  he  has  treated  me."  Blackmore's  Whig- 
ism  only  intensified  the  scorn  in  which  he  was  held,  as  a 
rhymester  and  blockhead,  by  Sir  Samuel  Garth — the  wit 
who,  with  all  his  amiability,  could  not  tolerate  fools,  and  the 
Whig  who,  with  all  his  political  fervor,  lived  more  with 
Tories  than  with  men  of  his  own  party.  In  these  particulars 
Garth  was  resembled  by  Mead,  who  from  early  manhood  to 
old  age  delighted  in  the  society  of  Tories,  and  plumed  him- 
self on  their  friendly  care  for  him. 

Medical  annals  comprise  few  matters  more  pleasant  to  the 
generous  reader,  or  more  creditable  to  human  nature,  than 
the  story  of  Mead's  conduct  towards  Freind,  when  the  lat- 
ter was  committed  to  the  Tower  on  suspicion  of  being  con- 
cerned in  the  Atterbury  plot.  The  Jacobite  doctor  and 
member  of  Parliament  for  Launceston  remained  in  the 
Tower  for  several  months ;  and  his  imprisonment  would 
have  lasted  longer  had  it  not  been  for  Mead's  repeated  and 
strenuous  appeals  in  his  behalf  to  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  who 
eventually  enlarged  the  captive  on  condition  that  Mead  and 
three  other  members  of  the  faculty  (Drs.  Hulse,  Levet,  and 
Hale)  should  be  sureties  for  his  good  behavior.  There  was 
a  great  gathering  of  doctors,  and  a  merry  dinner  in  Ormond 
Street,  on  the  day  of  Freind's  liberation ;  and  before  the 
guest  of  the  occasion  drove  westward  to  his  house  in  Albe- 
marle Street  (in  the  same  carriage  with  Arbuthnot,  who  lived 
in  Cork  Street,  Burlington  Gardens),  Mead  took  him  aside 
and  gave  him  the  fees  taken  from  his  patients  during  his 
captivity. 

At  the  close  of  these  notes  on  the  political  doctors  of 
olden  time,  something  more  must  be  said  of  Messenger 


92  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Monsey  (Lord  Chancellor  Cranworth's  great-grandfather), 
who  was  one  of  the  latest  well-pronounced  examples  of  his 
medical  species.  The  ill  wind  that  gave  Lord  Godolphin 
(the  Lord  Treasurer's  son)  an  apoplectic  seizure  on  his  road 
to  Newmarket,  was  a  fortunate  breeze  to  Messenger  Monsey, 
whom  it  wafted  from  obscurity  and  indigence  in  a  provin- 
cial town  to  celebrity  and  comparative  affluence  in  the  cap- 
ital. Delighted  with  the  doctor's  humor  and  conversational 
sprightliness,  Lord  Godolphin  urged  him  to  come  to  London 
and  pursue  fortune  in  the  great  world.  Acting  on  the  ad- 
vice, Monsey  never  regretted  having  taken  it,  for  though  he 
never  rose  to  the  highest  honors  of  his  profession  or  to 
greatly  lucrative  employment,  he  made  something  more  than 
a  sufficient  income,  and  had  the  gratification  of  making  it 
out  of  the  wealthy  and  of  living  in  the  best  coteries  of  his 
party. 

A  sparkling  raconteur,  he  animated  the  drawing-rooms 
and  coffee-houses  with  the  tongue  that  would  have  done  him 
better  service  could  it  have  quickened  the  general  mirth 
without  wounding  the  self-love  of  individuals.  Garrick 
never  forgave  the  caustic  talker  for  crying  across  a.-  riotous 
table  to  the  Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man,  "Garrick  going  to 
quit  the  stage !  That  he'll  never  do  so  long  as  he  knows 
a  guinea  is  cross  on  one  side  and  pile  on  the  other."  The 
tragedian's  bitterness  against  the  physician  was  not  mitigated 
by  the  story  that  ran  about  the  town  of  the  way  in  which 
the  latter  repelled  Lord  Bath's  attempt  to  reconcile  the  ene- 
mies who  had  been  friends.  "I  thank  you,"  said  Monsey, 
"but  why  will  your  lordship  trouble  yourself  about  the 
squabbles  of  a  Merry  Andrew  and  a  quack  doctor?"  So 
long  as  the  actor  was  vigorous,  Monsey,  in  those  days  of 
free  speech  and  broad  humor,  may  not  have  exceeded  the 
privileges  of  a  chartered  humorist  in  talking  pungently  of 
David's  greed  for  gold.  But  he  injured  himself  with  men 
of  good  feeling  when  he  seized  on  Garrick's  last  illness  as 
an  occasion  for  repeating,  in  a  set  of  satirical  verses,  the  old 
reflections  on  his  avarice. 

In  his  later  years  Monsey's  temper  lost  whatever  little 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  gi 

sweetness  it  ever  possessed,  and  as  he  grew  more  morose  he 
yielded  to  the  same  ignoble  infirmity  that  had  made  him 
speak  and  write  so  ruthlessly  of  Garrick.  His  dissatisfac- 
tion with  himself  and  the  world  was  not  the  less  keen  because 
he  never  survived  his  conscience,  and  certainly  had  some 
grounds  for  thinking  himself  badly  treated  by  his  friends. 
There  were  times  when  he  grumbled  angrily  that  his 
friends  had  more  respect  for  the  bon  mots  he  gave  them 
than  for  the  prescriptions  for  which  they  would  have  been 
charged.  Always  ready  to  extol  his  "Norfolk  Doctor/'  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  forbore  to  promote  his  interests  apart  from 
the  usual  payments  for  medical  service. 

"How  happens  it,"  Sir  Robert  asked  one  day  over  his 
wine,  "that  no  one  beats  me  at  billiards  or  contradicts  me 
except  Dr.  Monsey?" 

"  'Tis  easy  to  answer  that  question,"  growled  Monsey. 
"Other  people  get  places,  and  see  that  I  get  nothing  but  a 
dinner  and  praise." 

The  Duke  of  Grafton  was  even  a  less  beneficent  patron 
and  less  profitable  patient  than  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  In- 
stead of  paying  the  doctor  promptly  for  medical  service,  the 
duke  deferred  the  payment  with  a  definite  promise  to  obtain 
for  him  a  certain  place  that  would  soon  fall  vacant,  and  be  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  When  the  place  fell 
vacant  and  Monsey  reminded  the  duke  of  the  promise,  his 
grace  answered,  "I  am  truly  sorry  to  tell  you  that  in  reply 
to  my  entreaty  the  Lxjrd  Chamberlain  has  just  been  here, 
explaining  that  he  had  already  promised  the  place  to  Jack 
."  A  few  days  later,  on  speaking  about  the  mat- 
ter to  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  the  doctor  received  this  as- 
surance: "Yes,  Monsey,  the  duke  did  ask  me  to  give  the 
place  to  a  friend  of  his,  and  I  told  him  the  place  was  already 
promised ;  but  (in  strict  confidence  I  may  tell  you)  you  were 
not  the  person  to  whom  the  duke  begged  me  to  give  the 
place." 

Under  the  annoyance  coming  to  him  from  this  informa- 
tion, it  would  have  been  some  consolation  to  the  doctor  to 
draw,  in  his  own  peculiar  way,  one  of  the  duke's  soundest 


94  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

teeth.  This  eccentric  physician  took  so  keen  a  delight  in 
drawing  teeth  by  this  particular  process  that,  in  the  absence 
of  a  patient  with  a  fee  for  the  service,  he  would  sometimes 
be  his  own  dentist,  and  operate  on  himself  from  a  pure  love 
of  art.  The  process  was  this :  Round  the  tooth  to  be  drawn 
the  doctor  fastened  securely  a  strong  piece  of  catgut,  to  the 
other  end  of  which  a  bullet  was  attached.  A  pistol  having 
been  charged  with  this  bullet  and  a  full  measure  of  powder, 
the  operation  was  performed  effectually  and  speedily.  The 
doctor  could  rarely  prevail  on  his  friends  to  let  him  remove 
their  teeth  in  this  singular  and  startlingly  simple  manner. 
Once  a  gentleman,  who  had  agreed  to  make  trial  of  the  nov- 
elty, and  had  even  allowed  the  apparatus  to  be  adjusted, 
turned  craven  at  the  last  moment. 

"Stop!  Stop!"  he  exclaimed.  "I've  changed  my  mind." 
"But  I  haven't  changed  mine,  and  you're  a  coward  for 
changing  yours,"  answered  the  doctor,  pulling  the  trigger. 
Even  at  this  distance  of  time  it  would  be  pleasant  to  dis- 
cover that  the  patient  of  this  comedy  was  his  grace  of 
Grafton,  and  that,  to  avenge  himself  for  the  affair  of  the 
place  in  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  gift,  the  operator  attached 
the  catgut  to  the  wrong  tooth. 


CHAPTER  III 

ENSIGNS  AND  IMPOSTURES 

HE  eighteenth-century  poet  erred  when  he  threw 
off  the  familiar  Unes : 

Physics  of  old  her  entry  made 

Beneath  th'  immense  full-bottom'd  shade; 

While  the  gilt  cane,  with  solemn  pride. 

To  each  sagacious  nose  applied, 

Seem'd  but  a  necessary  prop 

To  bear  the  weight  of  wig  at  top. 

Like  the  divines  and  lawyers,  the  doctors  were  debtors 
for  their  wigs  to  the  Restoration  gallants,  who,  returning 
in  brave  costumes  with  their  sovereign  from  the  exile  that 
had  often  seen  them  in  garments  of  seediest  and  seamiest 
condition,  brought  the  superb  "full-bottom"  to  the  galleries 
of  Whitehall,  the  cutlet  (costelet)  to  London  dinner-tables, 
and  Sucre  brule  (soon  corrupted  to  "barley-sugar,"  and  in 
later  times  made  into  sucre  d'orge)  to  the  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish confectioners.  In  Tudor  England  the  ordinary  cover- 
ing of  a  physician's  head  was  a  black  skull-cap  similar  in 
shape  and  material  to  the  skull-caps  worn  by  Bishops  and 
judges.  Wigs  were  not  worn  by  the  medical  contemporaries 
of  Dr.  Henry  Atkins,  who  sailing  with  the  Earl  of  Essex  for 
the  Spanish  coast  in  1597,  was  soon  returned  to  Plymouth 
for  being  unable  to  cure  himself  of  one  of  the  most  depress- 
ing maladies.  The  famous  doctor  and  insufficient  seaman 
suffered  from  the  motion  of  the  waves  all  and  more  than 
all  that  the  Irish  gentleman  endured  from  the  physic,  which 
caused  him  to  exclaim  to  Dr.  Babington,  "Och !  and  it  is  the 
emetic  ye  are  ordering  me?  'Twon't  do,  doctor  dear.  The 
doctors  have  tried  it  with  me  in  Oireland  but  it  niver  stayed 
on  my  stomach." 


96  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Wearing  skull-caps,  the  pre-Restoration  doctors  of  the 
greatest  light  and  leading  wore  muffs  in  the  cold  weather, 
so  that  their  finger-tips  should  be  nicely  sensitive  of  the 
beatings  of  feeble  pulses,  and  went  their  rounds  sitting  on 
side-saddles,  like  women.  Instead  of  springing  to  and  from 
carriage-step  to  pavement  like  doctors  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, Dr.  Argent  (repeatedly  President  of  the  Physicians  in 
Charles  I.'s  time)  hopped  nimbly  up  and  down  from  the 
foot-board  of  his  effeminate  saddle  at  the  doors  of  his  pa- 
tients. It  was  the  same  with  Simeon  Foxe  (the  famous 
martyrologist's  son),  who  rose  to  medical  eminence  in  the 
same  period ;  and,  dying  in  1642,  was  buried  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  near  Linacre.  Competitors  in  fashionable  prac- 
tise almost  to  the  last  (for  they  died  within  a  year  of  one 
another)  Foxe  and  Argent  were  the  last  Presidents  of  the 
College,  if  not  the  last  physicians,  to  ride  about  town  in 
womanly  fashion. 

By  donning  the  Restoration  wig,  the  doctors,  instead  of 
making  themselves  conspicuous,  only  resembled  other  mod- 
ish people.  The  wig  became  the  ensign  of  the  learned  pro- 
fessions through  the  conservatism  of  the  learned  professors, 
who  first  rendered  themselves  slightly  conspicuous  by  wigs 
of  peculiar  cut,  and  eventually  made  themselves  very  re- 
markable by  holding  to  their  wigs  when  the  rest  of  the 
world  had  relinquished  them.  In  this  matter  the  profession 
of  which  Mr.  Briefless  is  so  graceful  an  ornament,  has 
surpassed  the  other  professions.  Still  worshiped  in  our 
Courts  of  Law,  the  wig  had  passed  from  the  College  of 
Physicians  long  before  the  Bishop  (Stanley)  of  Norwich 
made  a  flutter  in  the  clerical  world  by  declining  to  hide  his 
own  white  hair  under  artificial  tresses. 

But  if  the  doctors  only  went  with  the  universal  fashion  in 
adopting  the  Restoration  wig,  they  went  with  it  heartily. 
What  in  the  way  of  a  full-bottomed  court  wig  can  surpass, 
in  ringletted  cumbrousness  and  absurdity,  the  wig  worn  by 
Radcliffe  on  stateliest  occasions,  and  also  in  his  portrait 
painted  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  before  the  two  neighbors 
quarreled  with  one  another  over  their  garden  wall  ?   . 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  97 

Colonel  Dalmahoy  can  scarcely  have  been  more  elegantly 
equipped  with  hair  taken  from  other  people  when  it  was 
sung  of  him : 

If  you  would  see  a  noble  wig, 
And  in  that  wig  a  man  look  big, 
To  Ledgate  Hill  repair,  my  joy. 
And  gaze  on  Col'nel  Dalmahoy. 

And  who,  prithee,  was  Colonel  Dalmahoy,  that  he  should 
be  mentioned  in  these  notes  about  doctors?  A  colonel  of 
London's  trained  band,  the  stately  Dalmahoy,  living  hard  by 
the  Apothecaries'  Hall,  of  which  he  was  an  equally  success- 
ful and  ornamental  member,  kept  a  shop  on  Ludgate  Hill, 
where  he 

.    .    .    sold  infusions  and  lotions, 

Secretions,  and  gargles,  and  pills. 
Electuaries,  powders,  and  potions. 

Spermaceti,  salts,  scammony,  squills. 

Horse-aloes,  burnt  alum,  agaric, 
Balm,  benzoine,  blood-stone,  and  dill ; 

Castor,  camphor,  and  acid  tartaric. 
With  specifics  for  every  ill. 

But  with  all  his  specifics  in  store. 
Death  on  Dalmahoy  one  day  did  pop; 

And  although  he  had  doctors  a  score, 
Made  poor  Dalmahoy  shut  up  his  shop. 

Ceasing  to  ride  about  town  on  side-saddles  somewhere 
about  the  time  when  the  patients  of  Dr.  Argent  and  Simeon 
Foxe  were  compelled  to  seek  advice  from  other  doctors,  the 
London  physicians  distinguished  themselves  during  the  next 
hundred  years  by  rolling  in  the  stateliest  coaches,  and  driv- 
ing the  best  horses  to  be  seen  in  the  London  streets.  In 
Queen  Anne's  time  no  physician  with  the  slightest  preten- 
sions to  eminence  could  get  through  his  work  without  a  car- 
riage drawn  by  four  horses.  Called  to  a  patient  living  ten 
or  twelve  miles  out  of  town,  it  was  usual  for  a  leader  of 
the  medical  profession  to  make  the  journey  with  six  horses. 
It  followed  that  aspirants  to  medical  eminence  soon  began  to 


98  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

puff  themselves  into  note  by  the  grandeur  of  their  coaches 
and  the  excellence  of  their  cattle;  that  they  vied  with  un- 
deniably successful  doctors  in  the  quality  of  their  horse-flesh, 
carriages,  and  liveried  servants,  provoking  thereby  from  the 
same  doctors  of  indubitable  success  many  bitter  sarcasms 
and  cynical  prophecies.  When  the  pert  talker  at  Garraway's 
declared  that  "young  Dr.  Hannes  had  some  of  the  'smartest 
steppers'  of  the  town,"  Dr.  Radcliffe  growled  audibly  over 
his  bottle,  "Then  they'll  sell  well  when  they  come  to  the 
hammer!"  Henceforth  the  physician  was  known  by  his 
coach,  even  as  the  family  doctor  is  known  in  every  London 
suburb  at  the  present  day  by  his  "pill-box,"  or  the  butcher 
by  his  cart. 

At  the  same  time  the  doctor  retained  the  oldest  of  all  his 
official  insignia — the  cane  that  may  have  come  to  him  from 
the  staff  of  Hermes,  the  caduceus  of  Mercury,  or  in  un- 
broken succession  from  the  wand  of  ^sculapius.  Wherever 
he  was  encountered  the  man  of  medicine  was  recognized  by 
the  cane  he  held  in  his  hand,  more  often  than  not  held  to  his 
nose.  Whether  he  was  driving  in  his  carriage,  or  moving 
with  stately  paces  through  the  public  ways  on  foot,  or  work- 
ing through  the  throng  of  a  fashionable  salon,  the  doctor 
ever  had  his  cane  in  his  hand.  In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the 
cane  was  fitted  at  the  top  with  vinaigrette  charged  with  vir- 
tuous and  finely  aromatic  essences  that  were  of  sovereign 
efficacy  against  the  poisonous  fumes  of  patients  stricken 
with  plague  or  any  other  virulent  fever.  For  though  he 
was  ever  ready  to  face  death  on  a  sufficient  consideration  in 
the  pursuit  of  his  benevolent  calling,  the  doctor  of  olden 
time  was  not  without  a  prudent  care  for  his  own  safety. 
Sometimes  the  philanthropist's  care  for  himself  was  more 
obvious  than  his  care  for  others.  When  the  benevolent 
Howard  visited  Exeter,  he  found  that  the  medical  officer  of 
the  county  gaol  had  caused  a  clause  to  be  inserted  in  his 
agreement  with  the  magistrates  exempting  him  from  at- 
tendance on  and  services  to  the  prisoners  during  outbreaks 
of  gaol  fever.  It  cannot  be  doubted  this  exemplary  medical 
officer,  who  stipulated  that  he  should  not  be  required  to  at- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  $9 

tend  his  miserable  patients  when  they  most  needed  his  at- 
tention, carried  a  cane  with  a  prodigious  vinaigrette  charged 
with  pungent  scents. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  the  physician's  cane  preserved  at 
the  College  of  Physicians — the  cane  borne  successively  by 
Radcliffe,  Mead,  Askew,  Pitcairn,  and  Baillie — instead  of 
being  fitted  with  an  ostentatious  vinaigrette,  like  the  canes 
held  to  their  noses  by  the  doctors  of  Hogarth's  "Consulta- 
tion," has  a  solid  cross-bar  (znde  the  engraving  of  the 
Wand)  with  no  receptacle  for  odoriferous  and  disinfecting 
materials.  By  the  most  sagacious  of  the  several  clever  gen- 
tlemen who  have  tried  to  account  for  this  remarkable  ab- 
sence of  the  vinaigrette  from  the  head  of  the  cane  carried  by 
five  such  eminent  leaders  of  the  profession,  it  has  been  sug- 
gested that  whilst  canes  with  vinaigrettes  were  carried  by 
doctors  of  inferior  quality,  whose  avocations  required  them 
to  enter  daily  the  worst  fever-dens  and  most  pestiferous 
dwellings  of  the  town,  the  higher  physicians,  following  their 
calling  in  the  more  healthy  quarters  and  politer  houses  of 
the  metropolis,  had  no  need  of  the  vinaigrette,  and  therefore 
made  it  an  affair  of  dignity  and  courtesy  to  carry  canes  un- 
armed with  disinfectant  compositions.  It  is  in  favor  of  this 
view  that  Hogarth's  caricature  of  the  physicians  in  consulta- 
tion contains  no  portraits  of  the  foremost  leaders  of  the 
medical  profession,  and  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  a  piece 
of  artistic  satire  on  doctors  of  the  lower  grades  of  profes- 
sional status  and  employment. 

Whilst  the  physicians  had  the  cane,  with  or  without  a 
vinaigrette,  for  an  ensign,  the  surgeons  showed  over  their 
surgeries  the  painted  stick,  closely  resembling  the  barber's 
pole,  respecting  which  a  writer  in  the  "British  Apollo,"  No. 
3,  1703,  put  the  question : 

I'd  know  why  he  that  selleth  ale 
Hangs  out  a  chequered  part  per  pail ; 
And  why  a  barber  at  port-hole 
Puts  forth  a  parti-coloured  pole? 

Nearly  a  century  later  (July  17,  1797),  in  a  speech  against 


100  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

the  Surgeons'  Incorporation  Bill,  Lord  Thurlow  said  in  the 
House  of  Peers,  "By  a  statute  still  in  force  the  barbers  and 
surgeons  were  each  to  use  a  pole.  The  barbers  were  to  have 
theirs  blue  and  white  striped,  with  no  other  appendage ;  but 
the  surgeons',  which  was  the  same  in  other  respects,  was 
likewise  to  have  a  gallipot  and  a  red  bag,  to  denote  the  par- 
ticular nature  of  their  vocation."  The  Chancellor,  who 
omitted  to  give  the  date  of  the  statute  to  which  he  referred, 
was  certainly  wrong  about  the  proper  painting  of  the  sur- 
geons' pole.  Duly  tricked,  the  chirurgical  pole  ought  to 
have  a  line  of  blue  paint,  a  line  of  red  paint,  and  a  line  of 
white  paint,  winding  in  serpentine  fashion  round  its  length — 
the  blue  representing  the  venus  blood,  the  more  brilliant 
color  representing  the  arterial  blood,  and  the  white  thread 
of  paint  signifying  the  bandage  for  use  after  "blooding" ; 
the  stick  itself  being  a  sign  that  the  phlebotomist  has  at  hand 
a  stout  staff  for  his  patient  to  hold,  so  that  by  alternately 
lightening  and  relaxing  his  grasp  of  the  staff  he  may  quicken 
the  flow  of  blood  by  muscular  action  of  the  arm.  A  thing 
of  great  antiquity,  the  phlebotomist's  staff  is  found  in  illu- 
minations of  missals  penned  in  the  time  of  Edward  I.  "Tol- 
lite  barberum"  was  suggested  by  Bonnel  Thornton  as  a  fit 
motto  for  the  surgeons  in  1745,  when  the  surgeons  and  bar- 
bers parted  company.  The  barber  was  taken  from  the  sur- 
geons in  that  year,  but  the  pole  so  closely  resembling  the 
barber's  pole  remained  with  the  surgeons  to  a  later  date. 

The  physician's  cane  and  surgeon's  staff  were  used  some- 
times for  medical  fustigation  during  the  series  of  centuries 
that  honored  "the  stick"  (which,  according  to  the  Coptic 
proverb,  "came  down  from  heaven")  as  a  sovereign  remedy 
for  bodily  ailments  as  well  as  for  moral  failings.  Antonius 
Musa  cured  Octavius  Augustus  of  sciatica  by  thrashing 
him  soundly.  Thomas  Campanella  prescribed  the  stick  in 
cases  ordinarily  treated  with  colocynth.  Galen  found  it 
made  people  fat.  Gordonius  declared  it  efficacious  in  cases 
of  nervous  irritability,  especially  in  youthful  sufferers.  "If 
the  patient  is  young  and  disobedient,"  he  wrote,  "flog  him 
soundly    and   often."      Certainly   on  one   occasion,   if  not 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  loi 

oftener,  George  III.  was  flogged  for  being  mad.  To  this 
day  in  primitive  districts  of  Austria  mothers  cure  their  chil- 
dren of  whooping-cough  by  whipping. them.  Throughout 
our  feudal  period  the  bleeding-stick  and,ljii!,c€;t  v^re  pijl  j:o 
their  especial  use  at  the  season  fop  vernal  and ,  autumnaj 
"minutions"  with  a  frequency  that  nowadays'  provokfcsd. 
smile.  It  was  unusual  for  an  abbey  to  be  without  a  "fleboto- 
maria,"  or  "bleeding-house,"  where  the  people  of  the  estab- 
lishment could  be  blooded  at  the  proper  times  of  the  year  to 
strains  of  psalmody.  Treatises  were  written  in  prose  and 
verse  on  the  art  and  uses  of  bleeding.  An  old  tract,  well 
known  to  collectors  of  medical  curiosities,  is  divided  into 
the  following  chapters:  i.  What  is  to  limit  bleeding;  2. 
Qualities  of  an  able  phlebotomist ;  3.  Of  the  choice  of  in- 
struments ;  4.  Of  the  band  and  bolster ;  5  Of  porringers ;  6. 
Circumstances  to  be  considered  in  the  bleeding  of  a  prince. 
The  reader  of  "The  Saleme  Schoole"  is  taught  that — 

Of  bleeding  many  profits  grow,  and  great, 

The  spirits  and  senses  are  renewed  thereby, 
Though  these  mend  slowly  by  the  strength  of  meate, 

But  these  with  wine  restored  are  by-and-by; 
By  bleeding,  to  the  marrow  cometh  heate. 

It  maketh  cleane  your  braine,  releeves  your  eie, 
It  mends  your  appetite,  restoreth  sleepe. 

Correcting  humours  that  do  waking  keepe; 
All  inward  parts  and  senses  also  clearing, 

It  mends  the  voice,  touch,  smell,  and  hearing. 

Whilst  children  were  bled,  and  every  one  after  childhood  was 
bled  twice  or  thrice  a  year,  either  because  he  was  ill  and 
wished  to  get  well,  or  because  he  was  well  and  wished  to  get 
better,  there  were  amateur  phlebotomists  who  bled  their 
friends  for  amusement. 

Wanting  Lord  Randor's  vote  in  an  approaching  division 
of  the  Upper  House,  and  remembering  that  his  lordship  was 
one  of  these  amateurs  of  the  lancet,  Lord  Chesterfield  called 
upon  him,  and  during  the  visit  took  occasion  to  complain  of 
headache. 

"You  should  lose  blood  then,"  cried  Lord  Randor. 


102  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

"Then,  my  dear  lord,"  was  the  reply,  "do  be  kind  enough 
to  bleed  me." 

., In. another  minute  a  vein  of  Chesterfield's  arm  was  opened 
by^  "his  brothee  in:  the  peerage. 
•  Alter  the -operation  the  earl  had  no  difficulty  in  winning 
the  vote  °of  the- peer,  "to  whose  skill  in  phlebotomy  he  had 
paid  so  delicate  a  compliment. 

"I  have  been  shedding  my  blood  for  my  country,"  Chester- 
field remarked  gravely,  to  the  friends  whom  he  informed  a 
few  hours  later  how  he  got  Randor's  vote. 

For  bleeding  Charles  II.  with  the  courageous  promptitude 
that  prolonged  the  king's  life  for  a  few  days,  Sir  Edmund 
King  received  the  Council's  order  on  the  Exchequer  for  a 
fee  of  a  thousand  pounds — an  order  that  was,  however,  dis- 
regarded by  the  Chancellor  and  Chamberlains  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. Had  Sir  Edmund  fared  as  the  lords  of  the  Council 
wished  him  to  fare,  he  would  have  received  for  a  single 
prick  of  the  lancet  as  much  as  the  most  eminent  specialist  in 
phlebotomy  of  George  III.'s  London  used  to  make  in  a  year 
by  bleeding  people  at  fees  ranging  between  five  shillings 
and  a  single  shilling.  From  Queen  Anne's  time  to  the 
present  century  people  could  be  well  blooded  for  six-pence, 
three-pence,  and  at  times  of  keen  professional  competition 
for  nothing,  in  London,  as  well  as  in  the  provincial  towns. 
Richard  Steele,  who  gave  us  several  droll  stories  of  the 
quacks  of  his  day,  celebrated  the  phlebotomist  who  an- 
nounced that  "for  the  good  of  the  public"  he  had  lowered 
his  charge  for  bleedings  done  at  certain  hours  of  the  day 
to  three-pence.  "Whereas,"  Mr.  Clarke  advertised  in  the 
Stamford  Mercury  of  the  28th  of  March,  1716,  "the  ma- 
jority of  apothecaries  in  Boston  have  agreed  to  pull  down  the 
price  of  bleeding  to  six-pence,  let  these  certify  that  Mr. 
Clarke,  apothecary,  will  bleed  anybody  at  his  shop  gratis.'* 
The  Whitworth  Taylors  (two  brothers  famous  in  their  day 
throughout  Yorkshire  as  practitioners)  used  to  bleed  gratis 
on  Sundays,  and  in  May  often  had  a  hundred  patients  of- 
fering themselves  on  the  same  morning  for  gratuitous  vene- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  103 

section  in  the  bleeding-room^  that  was  fitted  with  a  wooden 
trough  to  carry  off  the  blood  of  the  wounded. 

Whilst  expert  phlebotomists  sometimes  received  handsome 
fees  for  their  skill,  inexpert  ones  were  sometimes  no  less 
generously  rewarded  for  their  want  of  it.  A  French  lady, 
before  she  expired  from  mischance  at  the  hands  of  a  blunder- 
ing bleeder,  bequeathed  the  maladroit  operator  a  life  an- 
nuity of  eight  hundred  francs,  on  condition  that  he  never 
again  bled  any  one.  With  similar  generosity  a  Polish  prin- 
cess in  1773  employed  her  last  moments  in  signing  the  co- 
dicil to  her  will  by  which,  together  with  her  forgiveness,  she 
granted  an  annuity  for  life  of  two  hundred  ducats  to  the 
surgeon  who,  instead  of  pricking  a  vein,  had  divided  one  of 
the  principal  arteries  of  her  arm. 

"My  lord,  surely  you  are  not  afraid  of  a  bleeding?"  said 
one  of  these  maladroit  handlers  of  the  lancet  to  the  French 
marechal,  who  flinched  under  his  awkwardness.  "I  am  not 
afraid  of  the  bleeding,"  answered  the  marechal,  "but  I  mis- 
trust the  bleeder." 

Certainly  not  more  than  twenty  years  since,  the  writer  of 
this  page  was  lunching  with  the  late  Sir  Cordy  Burrows — 
liveliest  of  companions,  cleverest  of  doctors,  trustiest  of 
friends — when  through  his  dining-room  window  were  seen 
signs  of  commotion  on  the  other  side  of  the  Old  Steyne  of 
Brighton.  It  was  an  accident  that  had  for  several  minutes 
been  drawing  a  crowd.  Burrows  seized  his  hat,  and  in  an- 
other minute  was  one  of  the  rapidly  growing  crowd  that, 
making  way  for  him,  closed  about  him.  Ten  minutes  later 
he  returned  with  a  droll  story  about  old  Bustard,  the  surgeon 
on  the  other  side  of  the  steyne,  who  on  Cordy's  appearance 
on  the  scene  was  already  in  possession  of  the  body  of  a  stal- 
wart workman,  who  had  fallen  from  a  high  scaffold  raised 
for  building  operations.  The  poor  fellow  was  dead,  having 
broken  his  neck  in  the  fall,  but  Bustard  had  already  bound 
the  man's  arm  with  a  bleeding-tape,  and  was  standing  over 
him  lancet  in  hand.  "What  are  you  after?  The  man  is 
dead,"  whispered  Burrows.  Angry  at  the  interruption,  and 
with  eyes  protruding  from  their  sockets,  as  they  were  wont 


I04  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

to  protrude  in  his  frequent  outbreaks  of  ill-temper,  Bustard 
shook  his  obstinate  head,  and  replied,  in  a  vicious  under- 
tone, "Thank  you  for  teaching  me  my  business.  I  know 
the  man  is  dead ;  but  the  public  is  getting  impatient  and  ex- 
pects something  to  be  done."  Hence  the  preparations  for 
bleeding  a  dead  man !  "When  in  doubt  out  with  your  lancet" 
was  the  favorite  maxim  of  an  extinct  school  of  surgeons 
who  knew  very  little  of  their  business. 

To  the  last  this  old-fashioned  surgeon  (of  course  Bustard 
was  not  his  real  name)  used  to  bleed  his  old-fashioned  pa- 
tients. An  enemy  to  change.  Bustard  sincerely  believed  that 
doctors  ought  to  be  as  ignorant  as  their  patients,  that  it  was 
all  right  to  have  a  few  highly  educated  doctors  to  attend 
upon  highly  educated  patients,  such  as  the  aristocracy  and 
the  gentry,  but  altogether  wrong  to  provide  humble  and  un- 
taught people  with  doctors  of  learning  and  enlightenment. 
"Pooh !"  this  interesting  man  remarked  shortly  before  his 
death  to  the  present  writer ;  "this  new  science  is  all  mighty 
fine !  Educate  young  doctors  for  the  upper  classes  as  high  as 
you  please,  but  remember  sick  people  don't  all  belong  to  the 
upper  classes.  What  will  become  of  the  poor  when  all  the 
young  doctors  have  been  educated  above  the  requirements 
of  the  populace?" 

What  strange  training  was  given  even  so  late  as  half  a 
century  since  to  boys  who  were  trained,  in  accordance  with 
Bustard's  notions,  to  be  proper  doctors  for  common  people ! 
What  marvelous  books  of  medicine  and  surgery  were  put  into 
their  hands!  What  astounding  compounds  in  the  way  of 
boluses  and  embrocations  were  they  taught  to  prepare !  Not 
seldom  the  young  apprentice  was  instructed  in  charlatanry 
as  a  department  of  medical  practise! 

"What  good  can  my  medicine  do  for  you  if  you  will  be 
so  imprudent  as  to  gorge  yourself  with  broad  beans?  You 
are  worse !  You  had  beans  for  dinner !"  exclaimed  an  apoth- 
ecary of  the  old  school,  as,  in  company  with  his  apprentice, 
he  entered  the  parlor  of  an  ancient  farrner.  Ten  minutes 
later,  as  they  drove  away  from  the  farmhouse,  the  apprentice 
inquired  of  his  master : 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  105 

"How  did  you  know,  sir,  at  a  glance,  that  the  old  man 
had  dined  off  beans  and  bacon?" 

"My  boy,"  answered  the  preceptor,  "I  saw  the  hulls  of  the 
beans  as  we  crossed  the  yard.  Take  this  lesson  to  heart.  To 
hold  your  patients'  confidence  you  must  keep  your  eyes  open." 

Ten  days  later,  sent  by  himself  to  call  on  the  same  patient 
and  report  on  his  condition,  the  apprentice  found  the  an- 
cient farmer  much  worse — so  ill  as  to  be  in  bed.  Assuming 
his  master's  air  and  voice  as  he  entered  the  chamber  of  sick- 
ness, the  intelligent  youth,  with  a  look  of  horror  in  his  coun- 
tenance, exclaimed,  "No  wonder  you  are  worse!  To  think 
of  a  man  in  your  state  being  so  imprudent  as  to  eat  a  horse 
for  his  dinner!  Physic  can't  cure  you  if  you  will  do  such 
things!"  The  worthy  pupil  of  an  unworthy  master  had 
taken  the  lesson  to  heart,  and  made  use  of  his  eyes.  New 
to  the  country  and  its  manners,  the  youth  (town-born  and 
town-bred)  had  still  to  learn  it  was  customary  for  an  ancient 
farmer  to  keep  his  best  saddle  in  his  bedroom.  Seeing  the 
saddle  on  its  proper  tree  over  the  fireplace  of  the  sick-room, 
it  was  natural  for  the  youth,  unfamiliar  with  rural  usages,  to 
infer  that  his  patient  had  eaten  a  horse. 

That  the  story  may  err  on  the  side  of  extravagance  is 
conceivable  ;  but  it  was  true  to  the  worst  side  of  the  education 
that  was  given  to  the  apprentices  of  provincial  apothecaries 
in  the  days  when  every  surgeon  let  blood  daily,  and  every 
Englishman  bore  on  his  arm  the  marks  of  the  lancet.  That 
those  days  are  not  far  distant  is  shown  by  the  very  name 
of  our  leading  medical  journal.  Established  by  the  enter- 
prising Mr.  Wakley  (while  a  member  of  Parliament  for 
Finsbury  and  Coroner  for  Middlesex),  the  most  audacious 
of  men  on  any  public  question,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most 
shy  of  mortals,  that  journal  was  started  when  the  bleeding 
mania  had  never  been  higher,  by  a  gentleman  at  whose  table 
the  present  writer  has  heard  many  a  story  told  with  incom- 
parable humor.  Now  that  the  instrument  is  reserved  for  its 
proper  and  legitimate  uses,  who  would  think  of  naming  a 
new  medical  journal  after  it?  In  its  name.  The  Lancet — 
ever  studied  by  the  leaders  of  science,  and  abreast  (as  it  has 


io6  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

ever  been)  with  the  foremost  wave  of  scientific  progress — is 
an  interesting  survival  of  an  obsolete  medical  practise. 

Whilst  every  town  of  England  had  its  strong  force  of 
masculine  operators  with  the  lancet,  the  country  was  scarce- 
ly less  rich  in  women  who  could  breathe  a  vein.  Every 
village  had  a  wise  woman  who  could  cup,  apply  leeches,  set 
a  broken  bone,  and  render  the  service  needful  when  new  can- 
didates for  human  honor  or  wretchedness  are  about  to  wail 
pitifully  for  the  first  time.  Coming  to  them  from  the  feudal 
centuries,  when  their  sex  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  what  is 
nowadays  called  obstetric  practise,  the  wisdom  and  respon- 
sibilities of  the  healer  pertained  to  the  women  of  England's 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  in  a  degree  little  im- 
agined in  the  present  time.  To  see  the  close  alliance  of  cook- 
ery and  medicine,  of  table-fare  and  kitchen-physic,  in  olden 
England,  one  has  only  to  look  into  the  cookery-books  of 
Elizabethan,  Stuart,  and  early  Georgian  booksellers,  in  whose 
pages  prescriptions  for  fever  drinks  and  tonic  draughts  are 
found  side  by  side  with  recipes  for  game-pies  and  mincemeat. 
The  woman  who  said  she  could  cook  was  regarded  with  sus- 
picion if  she  said  she  could  not  cure.  The  lady  who  knew 
how  to  furnish  forth  a  bridal  banquet  was  seldom  untried 
and  inexpert  in  the  service  of  Lucina.  Instead  of  intruding 
on  the  province  of  men,  the  medical  women  of  Georgian 
time  were  the  victims  of  masculine  intrusiveness,  and  only 
sought  their  livelihood  in  the  ancient  ways  of  their  sex. 

These  are  matters  to  be  remembered  by  the  student  of 
social  history  in  regarding  the  careers  of  Mistress  Margaret 
Kennix  and  Mistress  Woodhouse,  the  famous  doctoresses  of 
the  Elizabethan  era;  of  Mrs.  Sarah  Hastings  and  Mrs. 
French,  who  live  for  all  future  ages  in  the  "Philosophical 
Transactions  for  1694" ;  and  of  that  phenomenal  medical 
lady,  Mrs.  Joanna  Stephens,  who  in  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  received  a  round  £5,000  (£1,356  3s.  from  aristocratic 
subscribers,  and  the  remaining  £3,643  17s.  by  Parliamentary 
grant),  for  a  public  revelation  of  the  process  by  which  she 
made  the  medicines  that  had  saved  so  many  valuable  lives. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  107 

Till  it  can  be  shown  that  calcined  snails,  powdered  snail- 
shells,  egg-shells,  and  Alicant  soap  are  more  efficacious  than 
iodine  and  quinine  against  disease,  the  present  writer  will 
continue  to  think  meanly  of  Mistress  Joanna's  medicines; 
but  it  is  impossible  not  admire  the  lady's  audacity  in  de- 
manding i5,ooo  for  her  recipes^  and  her  firmness  in  standing 
out  for  the  last  farthing  of  the  price  she  put  upon  them. 

Mistress  Joanna  Stephens  was  still  the  darling  of  duch- 
esses and  the  peculiar  pet  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
and  the  Lord  Chancellor,  when  Mistress  Sarah  Mapp,  alias 
"the  Epsom  bone-setter,"  caught  the  ear  and  conscience  of 
the  town,  so  far  as  to  be  proclaimed  a  bone-setter  of  more 
than  human  cunning.  The  daughter  of  a  Wiltshire  bone- 
setter,  the  wife  of  a  violent  person  who  thrashed  her  sev- 
eral times  during  the  two  weeks  of  their  cohabitation.  Mis- 
tress Mapp  cannot  have  been  greatly  indebted  for  her  success 
to  her  personal  charms,  if  art  has  done  her  no  injustice.  In 
other  respects  she  was  a  lady  to  be  admired  at  a  distance 
rather  than  worshiped  in  a  small  drawing-room — to  be 
studied  through  glasses  of  history  rather  than  in  the  ways 
of  domestic  intimacy.  She  certainly  had  some  disagree- 
able failings.  Had  she  been  a  duchess  she  could  not  have 
sworn  louder  oaths,  and  she  drank  more  Geneva  than  Dr. 
Ward  Richardson  would  think  good  for  any  of  his  patients. 
Still,  she  made  a  brave  show  when  she  drove  (as  she  did  once 
a  week)  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  four  horses,  and  preceded  by 
outriders  in  splendid  liveries,  from  Epsom,  where  she  had 
her  home,  to  the  Grecian  Coffee  House,  where  she  received 
her  London  patients,  some  of  whom  were  people  of  the 
highest  fashion  and  rank.  It  was,  of  course,  vastly  droll  to 
see  the  gentle  creature  at  the  playhouse  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  seated  between  Spot  Ward  and  Chevalier  Taylor; 
and,  better  still,  to  see  her  on  being  mobbed  by  the  crowd, 
who  mistook  her  for  a  certain  German  countess,  put  her 
head  out  of  her  coach  window,  as  she  screamed  (somewhat 
as  Nell  Gwynne  screamed  on  a  similar  occasion)  :  "Don't 


io8  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

you  know  me  ?  I  am  not  the  countess,  but  Sally  Mapp,  the 
bone-setter."  No  doubt  the  poet  was  regardless  of  his  fee, 
and  thoughtful  only  of  the  lady's  merit,  when  he  wrote — 

Dare  you  vas  see  the  venders  of  the  varld  which  make  the  hair 
stand  on  tiptoe.  Dare  you  vas  see  mine  tumb  and  mine  findgar;  fire 
from  mine  findgar  and  feaders  on  mine  tumb.  Dare  you  vas  see 
de  gun  fire  viddout  ball  or  powder.  O  venders !  venders !  vonder- 
ful  venders ! 

You  surgeons  of  London,  who  puzzle  your  pates, 
To  ride  in  your  coaches,  and  purchase  estates. 
Give  over  for  shame,  for  pride  has  a  fall, 
And  the  doctress  of  Epsom  has  outdone  you  all, 

Derry  down, 

with  other  verses  no  less  musical.  Still,  when  all  has  been 
conceded  that  ought  to  be  conceded  to  her  credit,  it  remains 
that  Mistress  Mapp  was  a  lady  quite  as  clever  at  breaking 
bones  as  she  was  at  setting  them. 

If  she  was  the  most  impudent  quack  of  her  sex  she  was 
not  the  most  shameless  quack  of  her  time.  To  excel  in  im- 
pudence and  charlatanry  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  a  woman. 
If  they  could  only  be  raised  from  the  grave  and  made  into 
good  soldiers,  the  male  quacks  of  old  England  would  be  a 
valuable  addition  to  our  standing  army.  If  they  would  only 
fight  as  smartly  and  as  resolutely  as  they  lied  in  former 
times,  no  German  regiment  could  stand  before  them.  Even 
the  captains  of  the  knavish  throng  would  fill  a  long  list. 
One  is  reluctant  to  speak  ill  of  Atwell  (the  parson  of  St. 
Tue,  celebrated  in  Fuller's  "Worthies"),  who,  like  all  the 
most  successful  quacks  in  medicine,  succeeded  by  leaving 
nature  to  take  her  own  course ;  or  the  pious  Valentine  Great- 
rakes,  who  at  least  began  his  healing  career  like  an  honest 
gentlemen,  and  doubtless  cured  as  many  people  of  the  king's 
evil  by  stroking  them  as  ever  an  English  king  with  a  crown 
on  his  head  cured  by  virtue  of  royal  touch.  Then  comes 
Thomas  Saffold,  of  Charles  11. 's  London,  one  of  the  first 
London  quacks  to  advertise  his  wares  by  handbills,  given  to 
passers  in  the  public  streets.  In  the  whole  army  of  fraudu- 
lent pretenders  no  two  saucier  knaves  could  be  found  than 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  109 

the  taylor  Reade  (converted  by  royal  accolade  into  Sir  Will- 
iam Reade),  and  the  tinker  Roger  Grant,  whom  Queen  Anne 
constituted  her  "sworn  oculists,"  to  the  displeasure  of  the 
rhymester  who  threw  off  the  verses : 

Her  Majesty  sure  was  in  a  surprise, 

Or  else  was  very  short-sighted; 
When  a  tinker  was  sworn  to  look  after  her  eyes. 

And  the  mountebank  Reade  was  knighted. 

At  no  long  space  they  were  followed  by  Dr.  John  Han- 
cock, rector  of  St.  Margaret's,  Lothbury,  who  wrote  up  the 
water-cure  in  George  L's  time.     In  the  next  reign  did  not 
"Spot"  Ward  (so  styled  from  the  mole  on  his  cheek)  make 
a  fortune  by  his  pills,  and  drive  (by  royal  permission)  his 
splendid  coach  and  big  horses  daily  through  St.  James's 
Park?    Who  has  not  heard  of  the  tar  water  mania?    The 
two  quack  oculists    (Chevalier  Taylor  and  his   son,  John 
Taylor,  junior)  were  only  less  offensive  than  tinker  Grant 
and  Sir  William  Reade  by  being  considerably  less  success- 
ful.    Like  Greatrakes,  the  Loutherbourgs  (man  and  wife) 
cured  people  by  manual  touch,  unaided  by  medicine,  and 
assigned  their  mysterious  power  to  the  especial  favor  of  the 
Giver  of  all  gifts;  but  whilst  it  is  questionable  whether 
Greatrakes  ever  stroked  the  sick  for  profit,  it  is  certain  that, 
while   professing   to   take   no   reward,   the   Loutherbourgs 
filled  their  pockets  from  the  purses  of  those  who  believed  in 
them.    Another  charlatan  to  live  on  the  lips,  whilst  dipping 
hand  into  the  pocket  of  fashionable  London  (temp.  George 
IIL),  was  Dr.  Myersbach.     Contemporary  with  Myersbach 
was  Dr.  Katterfelto,  celebrated  in  Cowper's  "Task"  by  the 
lines, 

And  Katterfelto,  with  his  hair  on  end, 

At  his  own  wonders,  wondering  for  his  bread. 

Katterfelto  was  remarkable  for  entertaining  the  people 
who  bought  his  nostrums,  and  also  the  people  who  made  no 
trial  of  his  medicines,  with  lectures  on  electricity,  the  air- 
pump,  and  the  solar  microscope.  The  experiments  at  these 
scientific  addresses  may  have  been  diverting,  but  the  pro- 
fessor's oratory  cannot  have  contributed  much  to  the  tran- 


no  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

sient  popularity  of  his  entertainments^  if  he  was  faithfully 
reported  in  the  inscription  of  the  old  print :  "Dare  you  vas 
see  the  venders  of  the  varld,  which  make  de  hair  stand  on 
tiptoe.  Dare  you  vas  see  mine  tumb  and  mine  findgar ;  fire 
from  mine  findgar  and  feaders  on  mine  tumb.  Dare  you  vas 
see  de  gun  fire  viddout  ball  or  powder.  O  venders !  vonders ! 
vonderful  vonders!"  In  his  heyday  (no  long  day)  the  tall, 
thin  impostor,  wearing  a  black  gown  and  square  cap,  used  to 
move  about  the  country  in  a  chariot  drawn  by  six  horses 
and  surrounded  by  outriders  in  brilliant  liveries.  But  on 
falling  in  public  favor  he  appeared  with  only  two  mean 
horses  harnessed  to  his  coach,  whilst  his  retinue  of  footmen 
had  dwindled  to  two  black  boys  in  green  coats  with  red 
collars.  Having  fallen  thus  low,  Katterfelto's  career  was 
ended  by  the  Mayor  of  Shrewsbury,  who  sent  him  to  the 
House  of  Correction  for  the  ordinary  punishment  of  a  rogue 
and  vagabond. 

Ere  long  Katterfelto  was  replaced  by  impostors  of  some- 
what higher  education  and  very  much  better  style.  For  a 
while  Perkins  (the  American  cheat)  made  good  running 
with  his  metallic  tractors,  till  Dr.  Haygarth  of  Bath,  de- 
stroyed the  adventurer's  credit.  With  his  Temple  of  Health 
(first  in  the  Adelphi  and  afterwards  in  Pall  Mall),  with 
Emma  Harte  (Lady  Hamilton)  figuring  as  Goddess  of 
Health  in  the  "Sanctum  Sanctorum,"  whilst  patients  took 
earth-baths  in  the  rear  part  of  the  premises,  Dr.  Graham 
fleeced  the  public  for  a  long  term  of  years  before  he  lost  or 
spontaneously  surrendered  his  hold  of  fashion's  foolish 
throng.  At  no  great  distance  of  time  he  was  succeeded  by 
the  elegant,  graceful,  well-mannered  St.  John  Long,  whose 
house  in  Harley  street  was  no  less  attractive  to  women  of 
high  birth  and  rank  and  brightest  fashion  after,  than  it  had 
been  before,  his  trial  for  the  manslaughter  of  Miss  Cashin. 
When  consumption  sent  him  to  a  premature  grave  in  Ken- 
sal  Green  Cemetery,  this  finest  gentleman  of  the  medical  im- 
postors was  still  the  idol  of  his  fair  dupes.  What  are  the 
limits  of  charlatanry?  They  are  co-extensive  with  those  of 
human  credulity. 


CHAPTER  IV 


GOOD  CHEER  AND  SPARE  DIET 


N  the  days  when  our  forefathers  drank  sack  and 
ale  with  their  rich  breakfasts,  dined  heavily  at 
midday,  supped  copiously  at  6  P.  M.,  and  in  times 
of  festivity  indulged  in  "rear-suppers"  towards 
midnight,  doctors  found  no  small  part  of  their  employment 
in  fitting  patients,  who  had  feasted  themselves  ill,  for  a  re- 
moval of  the  pleasures  of  the  table.  Of  all  the  jolly  fellows 
who  followed  medicine  as  a  profession^  and  gluttony  as  a 
fine  art,  in  Charles  II.'s  London,  none  were  in  greater  re- 
quest with  epicures  and  gourmands  than  Dr.  Whitaker,  who 
wrote  "The  Tree  of  Humane  Life,  or  the  Bloud  of  the 
Grape,"  to  prove  "the  possibilitie  of  maintaining  humane  life 
from  infancy  to  extreme  old  age  without  any  sicknesse,  by 
the  use  of  wine"  (a  treatise  properly  held  in  low  esteem  by 
my  friend  Dr.  Benjamin  Ward  Richardson)  ;  and  John 
Archer,  who,  whilst  serving  the  Merry  Monarch  as  one  of 
his  physicians  in  ordinary,  condescended  to  receive  ordinary 
patients  at  his  chambers  near  the  Mews  (near  Charing 
Cross),  at  his  house  in  Knightsbridge,  "where  there  was 
good  air  for  the  cure  of  consumption,  melancholy,  and  other 
infirmities,"  and  at  the  open  shop  in  Winchester  Street 
(City),  hard  by  the  Gresham  College  and  next  door  to  the 
Fleece  Tavern,  where,  together  with  divers  nostrums  for  put- 
ting death  at  a  distance,  he  sold  good  tobacco  at  one  shilling 
and  super-excellent  tobacco  at  two  shillings  an  ounce.  The 
soothing  pipe  was  the  rich  man's  luxury  rather  than  the  poor 
man's  solace  when  the  fragrant  weed  cost  from  five  to  ten 
shillings  an  ounce  in  Victorian  money.  A  gentleman  of 
mechanical  genius.  Dr.  Archer  sold  also  at  his  Winchester 
Street  shop  the  hot  steam  bath,  and  the  oven  that  would 


113  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

"with  a  small  faggot  bake  a  good  quantity  of  anything," 
which  owed  their  existence  to  his  ingenuity.  He  was,  more- 
over, the  first  mechanician  to  put  on  the  streets  of  London  a 
coach  capable  of  holding  four  or  five  persons,  that  could 
be  drawn  easily  by  a  single  horse.  It  was  natural  for  so  in- 
ventive a  physician  to  bethink  himself  that  the  human  stom- 
ach might  be  more  effectually  swept  out  with  a  brush  than 
with  pills  of  colocynth  and  drinks  compounded  of  senna- 
tea  and  Epsom  salts.  Acting  on  this  notion,  he  produced  his 
famous  stomach-brush,  bearing  a  close  resemblance  to  the 
inplement  still  in  use  for  cleaning  the  inside  of  bottles  and 
other  narrow-necked  vessels.  Forced  down  the  patient's 
gullet,  and  worked  by  a  vigorous  operator,  this  charming 
arrangement  for  putting  old-fashioned  emetics  out  of  fashion 
was  fruitful  of  sensations  that  may  be  left  to  the  reader's 
imagination — sensations  that  prevented  the  brush  from  com- 
ing into  general  favor  with  squeamish  invalids.  On  finding 
his  patients  universally  reluctant  to  be  brushed  out  a  second 
time,  Dr.  Archer  had  reason  to  reflect  warmly  on  their  want 
of  fortitude,  and  to  complain  of  the  world  for  not  giving  his 
admirable  invention  a  fair  trial. 

John  Archer  was  not  the  only  doctor  of  his  period  to 
prescribe  tobacco  as  a  medicine  for  weakness  of  memory  and 
eyesight,  a  sovereign  remedy  for  rheum  and  ague,  and  a 
sure  defense  against  the  plague.  Old  Butler,  whose  medi- 
cated ale  was  sold  under  his  name  long  after  his  death  at  the 
Butler's  Head,  in  Mason's  Alley,  Basinghall  Street,  seldom 
felt  a  sick  man's  pulse  without  bidding  him  put  a  pipe  in  his 
mouth ;  and  Dr.  Everard  celebrated  the  medical  and  chirurgi- 
cal  efficacy  of  the  potent  plant  in  his  "Panacea,  or  the  Uni- 
versal Medicine ;  being  a  Discovery  of  the  Wonderful  Vir- 
tues of  Tobacco  taken  in  a  Pipe."  Whilst  tobacco  was  thus 
honored  by  the  faculty,  it  was  averred  that  during  the  Great 
Plague  of  London  no  tobacconist's  house  was  visited  by 
the  pestilence.  Hence  the  practise  of  making  children  smoke 
in  sickly  seasons — a  practise  that  formerly  constrained  many 
a  little  fellow  at  Eton  to  choose  a  whipping  on  being  told 
he  must  suffer  from  the  stinging  rod  if  he  would  not  sicken 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  113 

from  the  nauseating  pipe.  In  these  later  generations  tobacco 
has  found  little  favor  with  the  faculty,  and  of  all  the  doc- 
tors to  denounce  a  habit  that  has  survived  so  many  efforts 
for  its  suppression,  none  was  more  vehement  or  more  loudly 
applauded  by  the  anti-tobacconists  than  Samuel  Solly,  the 
whilom  surgeon  of  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  who  saw  death 
in  the  pipe  no  less  distinctly  than  George  Cruikshank  dis- 
covered it  in  the  bottle.  Seeing  death  thus  clearly  in  tobacco, 
Mr.  Solly  saw  death  in  all  smokers  of  it. 

The  tobacco  controversy,  by  which  the  clever  surgeon  is 
chiefly  remembered  at  the  present  time,  was  at  its  height 
some  five-and-twenty  years,  when  a  London  merchant  en- 
tered Henry  Jeaffreson's  consulting-room  in  a  state  of  lively 
excitement  and  begged  the  physician  to  examine  him  and  be 
frank  with  him,  to  lose  no  time  in  examining  him  and  telling 
him  the  worst.  The  applicant  entreated  that  nothing  should 
be  withheld  from  him.  He  was  not  afraid  to  die ;  not  a  bit 
of  it ;  but  he  had  affairs  to  arrange,  settle,  wind  up,  and  it 
was  of  high  importance  he  should  know  within  a  little  how 
much  time  he  might  count  upon  for  the  winding-up  of  his 
affairs.  The  examination  must  be  m^de  at  once;  not  a 
moment  must  be  lost. 

"What's  all  this  about?"  inquired  the  physician  of  Bar- 
tholomew's Hospital,  as  one  of  his  peculiar  smiles — a  smile 
of  mingled  sympathy  and  humor — played  over  his  face, 
whilst  he  recognized  a  former  patient  in  his  visitor.  "But  I 
see ;  you  have  been  rejected  by  a  life  office,  and  you  want 
me  to  tell  you  what  is  the  matter." 

"Precisely!  My  life  has  been  rejected  by  the  Arm-in- 
Arm,  and  they  won't  say  why  they  have  rejected  me." 

After  making  a  long  and  careful  examination  of  the  con- 
demned man,  the  physician  observed,  quietly,  "You  need  not 
hurry  in  winding  up  your  affairs.  Take  your  time ;  there 
is  really  no  need  for  haste." 

"How  many  years  have  I  to  live?" 

"That's  more  than  I  can  say." 

"What's  the  matter  with  me?" 

"Nothing.    You're  as  sound  as  a  bell." 


114  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

"But  they  rejected  me  at  the  Arm-in- Arm,"  returned  the 
equally  relieved  and  perplexed  applicant,  repeating  the  name 
of  a  life  insurance  office  that  of  course  was  not  named  the 
Arm-in-Arm. 

"You're  an  old  friend,  and  I  can  trust  you  not  to  go  about 
telling  every  one  what  I  say  to  you.  Solly  examined  you  at 
the  Arm-in-Arm?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Solly — good  man." 

"A  very  good  man ;  and  he  asked  you  if  you  smoked  ?" 

"Yes.    And  I  told  him,  'Three  or  four  cigars  a  day.' " 

"That  answer  was  enough  to  make  Solly  discover  heart- 
disease  or  anything  else  in  you.  Pay  no  attention  to  his 
verdict.    Trust  to  my  assurance — you're  as  sound  as  a  bell." 

"You're  sure  you  are  not  saying  this  to  cheer  me  up  and 
put  me  at  my  ease  ?" 

"How  much  do  you  know  of  Solly?" 

"I  never  saw  him  until  he  examined  me,  and  I  have  never 
seen  him  since." 

"It  would  be  a  great  comfort  to  you  to  hear  Solly  declare 
you  a  good  life?  If  he  told  you  so,  nothing  would  remain 
of  the  uneasiness  he  has  occasioned  you  ?" 

"It  would  indeed  relieve  me  vastly.  But  it  is  not  to  be 
supposed  he  will  recall  his  opinion." 

"If  he  could  be  induced  to  examine  you,  and  report  on 
you,  not  knowing  that  you  smoked,  would  it  be  enough  for 
you  if,  under  that  misconception,  he  declared  you  all  right?" 

"Quite." 

"Well,  I  think  that  might  be  managed.  Solly  is  medical 
referee  for  another  office — the  United  Economists.  Your 
name  is  not  a  remarkable  name ;  Smith  is  not  a  remarkable 
name ;  and  Solly  does  not  recollect  faces.  If  you  went  be- 
fore him  at  the  United  Economists'  office  for  another  ex- 
amination, he  would  not  recognize  you." 

The  hint  was  taken.  Smith  was  re-examined  by  the  same 
clever,  able,  adroit  surgeon,  and  he  left  the  surgeon's  pres- 
ence with  an  assurance  that  he  was  in  perfect  health,  and 
had  a  heart  not  unlikely  to  go  on  beating  till  he  was  eighty 
years  of  age.    Smith's  mind  was  at  ease,  though  it  must  be 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  115 

admitted  he  was  guilty  of  something  very  near  a  false  as- 
sertion when,  in  reply  to  the  examiner's  inquiry,  "Do  you 
smoke?"  he  ejaculated,  in  a  tone  of  abhorrence  and  with  a 
look  of  ineffable  disgust,  "Bah !  Disgusting  habit !  How  can 
you  ask  me  such  a  question?" 

To  return  from  the  smoke-room  to  the  dining-room,  for 
whose  chief  article  of  furniture  society  is  indebted  to  a  doc- 
tor less  famous  for  the  excellence  of  his  ragouts  than  the 
weakness  of  his  mutton-broth.  Not  that  Nurse  Gibbons, 
Radcliffe's  well-hated  rival,  lived  on  the  slops  and  light 
messes  he  prescribed  for  his  patients  when  they  were  in  his 
power.  On  the  contrary,  a  deep  drinker  and  insatiable 
gourmand,  the  grossness  of  whose  debaucheries  offended  the 
epicurean  Garth,  Dr.  Gibbons  put  substantial  fare  on  the 
first  mahogany  dining-table  ever  seen  in  London — the  table 
made  out  of  the  "new  wood"  which  his  brother,  the  West 
Indian  captain,  had  brought  to  England  as  ballast  for  his 
vessel. 

Whether  Mead  took  Radcliffe's  oak  table  together  with  his 
house  is  a  question  about  which  social  history  is  silent,  but 
readers  need  not  to  be  told  that  the  great  Whig  physician 
maintained  the  hospitable  traditions  of  his  profession.  In  the 
far-away  time,  when  Bloomsbury  was  fashionable  and  gentle- 
women of  the  highest  quality  received  their  friends  in 
Queen's  Square,  no  house  in  Great  Ormond  Street  had  a 
better  reputation  than  Mead's  for  the  grandeur  of  its  dinners 
and  the  brilliance  of  its  entertainments.  At  a  brief  interval 
Mead  was  followed  by  John  Coakley  Lettsom,  the  West  In- 
dian Quaker,  who,  earning  ii2,ooo  a  year  in  the  fulness  of 
his  long-sustained  success,  displayed  at  the  same  time  the 
virtues  of  a  Friend  and  the  tastes  of  a  man  of  society.  The 
originator  of  the  Finsbury  Dispensary,  the  Surrey  Dis- 
pensary, and  the  Margate  Sea-Bathing  Infirmary,  Lettsom 
also  found  time,  amidst  the  exactions  and  distractions  of  his 
professional  avocations,  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Philanthropical  Society  for  the  Reformation 
of  the  Criminal  Poor,  the  Society  for  the  Relief  of  Impris- 
oned Debtors,  the  Asylum  for  the  Indigent  Deaf  and  Dumb, 


n6        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

the  Institution  for  the  Rehef  and  Employment  of  the  Indi- 
gent BHnd,  and  the  Royal  Humane  Society.  The  author  of 
numerous  books,  he  was  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  Getp- 
tleman's  Magazine,  under  the  signature  of  Mottles,  an  ana- 
gram of  his  own  name.  And  yet  with  so  singular  a  diver- 
sity of  employments  and  interests  the  laughter-loving 
Quaker  could  devote  the  Saturday  of  every  week  to  the  re- 
ception of  his  friends.  How  he  entertained  them  in  the  sum- 
mer we  know  from  Boswell's  lines : 

Yet  are  we  gay  in  every  way, 

Not  minding  where  the  joke  lie; 
On  Saturday  at  bowls  we  play 

At  Camberwell  with   Coakley. 

Methinks  you  laugh  to  hear  but  half 

The  name  of  Dr.  Lettsom ; 
For  him  of  good — talk,  liquors,  food — 

His  guests  will  always  get  some. 

And  guests  has  he,  in  ev'ry  degree, 

Of  decent  estimation ; 
His  liberal  mind  holds  all  mankind 

As  an  extended  nation. 

Boswell's  rhyme  on  the  physician's  name  reminds  one  of 
the  doctor's  humorous  quartet  on  his  own  way  of  dealing 
with  patients — 

When  patients  sick  to  me  apply 

I  physics,  bleeds,  and  sweats  'em, 
Then — if  they  choose  to  die, 

What's  that  to  me — I  lets  'em — L  Lettsom. 

In  concern  for  the  interests  of  gastronomy  no  living  leader 
of  the  medical  profession  surpasses  Sir  Henry  Thompson, 
the  famous  surgeon  who  would  have  been  a  Royal  Academi- 
cian thirty  years  since  had  he  followed  the  example  of  his 
grandfather  (Medley,  the  portrait-painter)  in  making  the 
fine  arts  his  profession  instead  of  his  amusement ;  and  would 
have  figured  in  the  first  rank  of  men  of  letters,  had  not  the 
eclat  of  a  brilliant  amateur  satisfied  his  ambition  for  literary 
distinction.  Moving  in  the  sunshine  of  society,  and  living 
with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  clever  and  honorable  men 
who  are  drawn  to  him  by  endowments  that  would  have  made 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  117 

him  a  social  power  even  if  they  had  not  been  attended  with 
social  prosperity,  the  author  of  "Food  and  Feeding"  has  for 
years  entertained  his  friends  of  the  sterner  sex  at  "dinners 
of  eight,"  that  have  long  had  a  reputation  which  enables  the 
present  writer  to  refer  to  them  without  impropriety.  Served 
at  eight  o'clock  to  the  moment,  the  Wimpole  Street  dinners 
are  arranged  for  eight  "convives,"  with  due  regard  for  the 
entertainer's  favorite  festal  number.  Headed  by  a  musical 
octave,  the  vienu  promises  eight  dishes ;  and  eight  bottles 
of  wine  perish  with  each  repast.  Not  many  months  have 
passed  since  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  at  one  of  these  dinners 
of  eight  and  returned  to  Marlborough  House  in  a  humor  to 
report  that  the  Wimpole  Street  "Octaves"  had  been  spoken 
of  none  too  honorably.  It  is  on  record  that  when  Queen 
Anne's  Dr.  Radcliffe  had  the  honor  of  entertaining  Prince 
Eugene  of  Savoy  at  a  table  spread  with  "barons  of  beef, 
jiggets  of  mutton,  legs  of  pork,  and  other  ponderous  masses 
of  butcher's  stuff,"  the  prince  was  good  enough  to  declare 
himself  "highly  delighted  with  the  food  and  liquors."  If 
on  leaving  35  Wimpole  Street,  the  Prince  of  Wales  omitted 
to  say  or  hint  as  much,  it  may  be  assumed  (by  a  writer  who 
has  been  one  of  Sir  Henry's  "Octavians"  from  the  first  in- 
stitution of  the  celebrated  dinners)  that  his  Royal  Highness 
felt  it. 

Promoting  the  good  fellowship  that  proceeds  from  good 
cheer  by  their  cooks  and  kitchens  and  well-furnished  cellars, 
the  leaders  of  the  medical  profession  have  also  furthered 
the  interests  of  gastronomy  with  their  pens.  Indeed  the  role 
of  memorable  medical  Amphitryons  is  scarcely  longer  or 
more  remarkable  than  the  role  of  medical  contributors  to 
the  literature  of  feeding.  "The  Forme  of  Cury,"  the  earliest 
of  all  our  historic  and  authoritative  cookery-books,  pro- 
ceeded from  a  committee  of  Richard  II.'s  doctors.  Sir 
Theodore  Mayerne,  who  died  of  a  too  perfect  supper  at  a 
Strand  Hotel,  left  posterity  a  goodly  collection  of  "Ex- 
cellent and  Well-Approved  Receipts  in  Cookery."  The  most 
famous  of  all  Sir  John  Hill's  many  publications  is  "The  Art 
of  Cookery,"  which  he  produced  under  the  nom  de  plume 


Ii8  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

of  Mrs.  Glasse — the  useful  compilation  which  has  every 
housekeeper's  good  word  and  no  one's  ridicule,  till  some 
blockhead,  after  misreading  the  compiler's  seasonable  direc- 
tion, "First  case  your  hare"  {i.  e.,  "First  skin  your  hare"), 
declared  Mrs.  Glasse  a  foolish  body  for  writing  "First  catch 
your  hare,"  as  though  it  were  in  the  power  of  mortal  cook 
to  roast  a  hare  before  it  had  been  caught.  Dr.  Martin  Lister 
(one  of  Queen  Anne's  physicians),  who  loved  good  cheer 
wisely  and  none  too  well,  even  as  Dr.  Martin  Luther  loved 
"women,  wine,  and  song,"  edited  Apicius  Cselius's  "Viands 
and  Condiments."  Dr.  Kitchener  gave  mankind  the  "Cook's 
Oracle."  Dr.  Lankester  (whilom  of  the  Royal  Society  and 
Coroner  of  Middlesex)  published  his  lectures  on  the 
Chemistry  of  Food.  To  Sir  Henry  Thompson  we  owe  a 
treatise  on  Wholesome  and  Delicate  Fare  (the  reprinted  ar- 
ticles on  "Food  and  Feeding,"  from  The  Nineteenth  Cetp- 
tury),  which,  while  showing  the  rich  how  to  enjoy  the  lux- 
uries of  a  costly  table,  does  good  service  to  the  poor  by 
showing  at  how  small  a  charge  one  may  procure  all  the 
nourishment  that  is  needful  for  the  body's  perfect  suste- 
nance. 

Let  it  not,  however,  be  imagined  that  Sir  Henry  Thomp- 
son and  Dr.  Richardson  were  the  first  of  their  calling  to  dis- 
cover in  excess  the  greatest  foe  to  physical  vigor  and  mental 
ease.  The  experience  of  many  healers  was  condensed  by 
the  author  of  "The  Salerne  Schoole"  into  the  familiar 
couplet : 

Use  three  physicians  still — first  Doctor  Quiet, 
Next  Doctor  Merriman  and  Doctor  Diet. 

Lewis  du  Moulin  may  have  held  quietude  and  mirth  in  dis- 
esteem  for  he  was  a  bitter  disputant  and  an  austere  Cal- 
vinist ;  but  he  was  alive  to  the  fact  ever  being  forced  on  the 
physician's  notice  that  whilst  temperance  is  favorable  to 
health  in  all  men,  any  departure  from  moderation  in  eating 
and  drinking  is,  in  various  degrees,  hurtful  to  most  men.  A 
physician  of  three  Universities  (Leyden,  Cambridge,  and 
Oxford,   and   Camden    Professor  of  History   at  the   last-> 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE         ng 

named  University  during  the  Commonwealth),  Ehi  Moulin 
was  no  sooner  turned  out  of  his  professorship  by  the  re- 
storers than  he  migrated  to  Westminster,  and,  resuming 
medical  practise,  found  abundant  employment  in  his  proper 
vocation,  till  he  remarked  in  his  dying  illness  to  the  friends 
about  his  bed,  that  "he  left  behind  him  two  great  physicians 
— Regimen  and  River  Water,"  a  water,  by  the  way,  of 
which  he  would  perhaps  have  thought  less  favorably  had 
the  Thames  been  no  purer  in  the  seventeenth  century  than 
it  is  at  the  present  time. 

It  is  a  question  whether  this  laudator  of  river  water  was 
related  to  the  surgeon  of  the  same  name  (alias  Moulins, 
alias  Molins),  who  enjoyed  John  Evelyn's  friendship,  and 
had  the  honor  of  trepanning  Prince  Rupert  towards  the  close 
of  the  illness  which  gave  the  courtiers  of  Whitehall  occasion 
for  marveling  how  the  hero,  so  fearless  of  death  in  the  bat- 
tlefield, was  so  inordinately  afraid  of  dying  in  his  lodgings 
at  Whitehall.  Great  was  the  stir  in  the  galleries  and  on  the 
staircase  of  the  palace  when  the  prince  was  known  to  be 
undergoing  the  operation.  "We  are  full  of  wishes  for  the 
good  success"  (i.  e.,  of  the  operation),  says  Pepys,  adding 
in  the  same  sentence,  with  piquant  frankness,  "though  I 
dare  say  but  few  do  really  concern  ourselves  for  him  in  our 
hearts." 

After  groaning  for  many  a  year  under  the  burden  and 
ignominy  of  a  body  so  fat  that  he  is  said  to  have  weighed 
thirty-two  stone,  Dr.  Cheyne,  the  famous  Bath  physician, 
discovered  the  pleasures  of  eating  and  drinking  were  not 
worth  the  price  he  was  required  to  pay  for  them.  The  re- 
sult of  this  discovery  was  that  he  bade  beef-steaks  a  long 
farewell,  and,  adopting  a  milk-and-vegetable  diet,  reduced 
himself  to  eleven  stone,  to  the  great  improvement  of  his 
health  and  appearance.  Having  at  the  age  of  forty  dis- 
covered what  was  good  for  himself,  the  doctor — who  lacked 
discretion,  though  no  one  ever  accused  him  of  wanting  wit — 
conceived  that  every  one  ought  to  follow  his  example.  For 
a  while  Bath  was  divided  into  two  parties — the  milk-drinkers 
and  the  wine-drinkers — who  would  have  had  nothing  in 


120  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

common  had  not  the  members  of  both  factions  loved  whist, 
deHghted  in  intrigue,  and  thought  it  their  duty  to  "drink 
the  waters."  In  the  heat  of  the  ensuing  controversy  about 
the  new  diet  of  milk  and  green  vegetables,  Dr.  Wynter  (the 
favorite  physician  of  the  wine-drinkers,  and  possibly  more 
capable  in  medicine  than  poetry)  declared  his  disdain  for 
the  regimen  and  its  originator  in  these  verses: 

Tell  me  from  whom,  fat-headed  Scot, 

Thou  didst  thy  system  learn; 
From  Hippocrate  thou  hast  it  not, 

Nor  Celsus,  nor  Pitcairn. 

Suppose  we  own  that  milk  is  good, 

And  say  the  same  of  grass ; 
The  one  for  babes  is  only  food. 

The  other  for  an  ass. 

Doctor,  our  new  prescription  try 

(A  friend's  advice  forgive), 
Eat  grass,  reduce  thyself,  and  die, 

Thy  patients  then  may  live. 

Declaring  himself  the  sufficient  authority  for  his  new 
method,  Cheyne  answered: 

My  system,  doctor,  is  my  own. 

No  tutor  I  pretend ; 
My  blunders  hurt  myself  alone. 

But  yours  your  dearest  friend. 

Were  you  to  milk  and  straw  confined, 

Thrice  happy  might  you  be; 
Perhaps  you  might  regain  your  mind, 

And  from  your  wit  be  free. 

I  can't  your  kind  prescriptions  try. 

But  heartily  forgive ; 
'Tis  natural  you  should  wish  me  die, 

That  you  yourself  may  live. 

Cheyne  was  happier  in  his  manner  of  dealing  with  an  af- 
front put  upon  him  by  Beau  Nash,  who,  on  being  asked 
whether  he  had  followed  a  prescription  given  him  by  the 
doctor  on  the  previous  day,  replied  saucily,  "If  I  had  I 
should  have  broken  my  neck,  for  I  threw  it  out  of  the 
window."  A  few  days  later  (before  he  turned  milk-drinker) 
Cheyne  was  sitting  over  a  bottle  with  some  learned  friends, 
and  stirring  them  to  unphilosophic  extravagances  of  laugh- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  121 

ter  with  his  droll  stories^  when  he  suddenly  pulled  a  long 
face,  and  remarked,  after  glancing  to  a  distant  spot  whence 
the  Beau  could  be  seen  approaching,  "Hush!  we  must  be 
grave  now ;  here's  a  fool  coming  our  way." 

To  Cheyne  a  word  of  thanks  is  due  for  a  careful  and 
curious  account  of  Colonel  Townshend's  singular  faculty  of 
feigning  death.  In  the  presence  of  Cheyne,  another  physi- 
cian (Dr.  Baynard),  and  an  apothecary  named  Skrine,  who 
had  been  invited  to  witness  the  exhibition,  the  colonel  laid 
himself  on  his  back  and  simulated  death  as  he  had  often 
simulated  it  in  former  times.  In  a  few  seconds  no  pulse 
was  perceptible  in  the  exhibitor's  wrist;  a  few  seconds  later 
and  his  heart  had  ceased  to  beat.  By  holding  a  mirror  be- 
fore the  colonel's  lips  the  medical  trio  satisfied  themselves 
that  he  was  not  breathing.  For  half  an  hour  the  colonel  lay 
in  this  state,  unconscious,  breathless,  pallid,  pulseless,  in 
every  particular  of  appearance  as  dead  as  the  proverbial 
door-nail ;  when,  to  the  relief  of  the  spectators,  who  were  be- 
ginning to  fear  the  performance  had  been  carried  too  far, 
a  slight  movement  of  the  body  caused  them  to  resume  their 
duties  of  observation,  Cheyne  putting  his  forefinger  to  the 
patient's  wrists,  and  Dr.  Baynard  laying  his  right  palm  over 
the  region  of  the  exhibitor's  heart.  A  few  seconds  more 
and  the  colonel  was  alive  again.  What  followed  his  return 
to  consciousness  is  perhaps  the  strangest  part  of  the  whole 
story.  Having  dismissed  his  medical  inspectors.  Colonel 
Townshend  sent  for  his  attorney,  made  his  will,  and  died 
really,  within  six  hours  of  his  last  imitation  of  death.  Why 
did  he  die?    Had  he,  as  the  doctors  say,  overdone  it? 

Apropos  of  this  doctor  named  Cheyne,  and  this  story  of  a 
heart  that  ceased  to  beat  during  its  owner's  life,  reference 
may  be  made  to  Sir  Thomas  Cheyne's  heart,  that  is  said 
in  "Baker's  Chronicle"  to  have  continued  to  beat  for  more 
than  three  quarters  of  an  hour  after  his  death.  Sir  Thomas 
Cheyne  was  Lord  Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports  at  the  time 
of  his  demise,  in  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  The 
reporter  of  so  curious  a  fact  omits  to  state  how  the  watchers 


122        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

about  the  Lord  Warden's  bed  knew  he  was  dead  when  to 
their  knowledge  his  heart  was  still  beating. 

Paying  due  attention  to  the  diet  of  his  patients,  Sir  Rich- 
ard Jebb,  by  no  means  the  courtliest  of  court  physicians,  was 
apt  to  be  irritable  when  they  pestered  him  with  too  many 
questions  touching  what  they  should  eat,  drink,  and  avoid. 

"Pray,  Sir  Richard,  may  I  eat  a  muffin?"  asked  a  lady 
who  had  suffered  from  violent  indigestion  on  the  previous 
Tuesday. 

"By  all  means,  madam,"  answered  the  physician ;  "have  a 
muffin  if  you  wish  for  one.  It  is  as  good  a  thing  as  you  can 
take." 

"But,  dear  Sir  Richard,  a  few  days  since  you  said  a  muffin 
was  the  very  worst  thing  for  me." 

"Pshaw !  pshaw !  madam,  that  was  last  Tuesday.  This 
isn't  Tuesday  is  it  ?"  tartly  returned  the  doctor,  in  a  manner 
which,  to  listeners  unacquainted  with  the  circumstances  of 
the  case,  seemed  to  imply  that  muffins  meant  sudden  death 
on  Tuesdays,  and  were  faultless  feeding  on  every  other  day 
of  the  week. 

To  another  fashionable  lady,  who  objected  to  the  dinner 
the  doctor  was  ordering  for  her,  Sir  Richard  responded  with 
still  greater  severity. 

"Boiled  mutton  and  turnips?"  cried  the  lady.  "You  for- 
get, Sir  Richard,  that  I  can't  bear  boiled  turnips !" 

"Then,  madam,"  returned  the  doctor,  in  a  tone  of  stern- 
est reprobation,  as  though  he  were  charging  her  with  some 
serious  immorality,  "you  must  have  an  extremely  vitiated 
palate." 

Lest  she  should  provoke  a  charge  of  morbid  appetite  the 
poor  lady  fell  back  upon  golden  silence,  and  forbore  to  name 
the  vegetable  she  would  prefer  to  boiled  turnips. 

To  an  old  gentleman,  a  malade  imagincdre,  with  the  diges- 
tion of  an  ostrich  and  the  fancifulness  of  half  a  hundred 
ladies  of  quality,  Jebb  exclaimed  ferociously,  "What  may 
you  eat?  Don't  eat  the  poker,  or  the  shovel,  or  the  tongs, 
for  even  you  will  find  them  hard  of  digestion.  Don't  eat  the 
bellows,  for  they  are  apt  to  make  wind.     But  eat  anything 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  123 

else  you  please."  In  this  style  the  physician  had  been  allow- 
ing his  tongue  to  play  freely,  when,  in  submission  to  a  look 
of  anger  on  the  face  of  a  lordly  patient,  he  added  apologetic- 
ally, "Don't  be  offended  at  my  way.  It's  only  my  way." 
"If  that's  only  your  way,"  replied  the  invalid,  pointing  to 
the  door,  "oblige  me  by  making  that  your  way."  The 
apology  was  insufficient,  but  it  had  the  merit  of  truthfulness. 
It  was  the  physician's  way  to  say  whatever  he  pleased.  Un- 
like Dr.  Johnson,  who  could  not  presume  to  bandy  words 
with  his  sovereign.  Sir  Richard  Jebb  talked  as  lightly  to 
George  III.  as  to  any  other  of  his  patients.  When  the  king 
lamented  the  restless  spirit  of  his  physician's  cousin  (Dr. 
John  Jebb,  the  dissenting  minister),  Sir  Richard  answered, 
"And  please  you,  sire,  if  my  brother  were  in  heaven  he 
would  be  a  reformer." 

The  caricature  of  Abernethy  with  which  Theodore  Hook 
enlivened  the  rather  torpid  pages  of  the  "Parish  Clerk"  con- 
tains a  passage  which  has  caused  the  people  to  imagine  the 
famous  surgeon  allowed  his  patients  any  license  in  eating 
and  drinking  that  stopped  short  of  drunkenness  and  egregi- 
ous gluttony.  "Eat  the  best  of  everything  you  fancy,"  he 
is  made  to  say  in  a  story,  "only  don't  cram;  drink  as  much 
of  the  best  wine  you  can  get  as  will  exhilarate  you  without 
making  you  drunk."  Habitually  temperate  in  his  habits, 
though  by  no  means  averse  to  the  pleasures  of  the  table  in 
seasons  of  recreation,  the  surgeon  of  liberal  culture  and  pur- 
suits (whose  tone  and  temper  have  been  strangely  misrepre- 
sented by  the  anecdotical  gossip-mongers)  did  perhaps  more 
than  any  doctor  of  his  period  to  teach  the  world  that  whilst 
temperance  was  health's  best  friend,  indolence  was  one  of 
its  worst  enemies.  The  surgeon  who  told  the  indolent  bon- 
vivant  to  "live  on  six-pence  a  day  and  earn  it"  gave  a  good 
opinion  in  the  fewest  possible  words,  and  fairly  earned  the 
guinea  which  no  doubt  was  paid  reluctantly  for  advice  so  ex- 
cellent and  at  the  same  time  so  unacceptable.  A  double  fee 
was  too  small  a  payment  for  his  instructions  to  the  alder- 
man's footman,  who  was  ordered  to  put  in  a  bowl  a  fair  por- 
tion of  every  dish  of  which  his  master  partook  at  a  civic 


ii4  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

feast,  and  after  the  banquet  to  put  the  bowl  with  all  its  mis- 
cellaneous contents  of  turtle,  turbot,  butcher's  meat,  poultry, 
game,  salad,  sweet-messes,  cheese,  fruits,  ale,  wine,  and 
cakes,  immediately  under  the  eyes  of  the  gentleman  who 
was  ill  of  nothing  but  habitual  over-feeding. 

Ever  ready  to  listen  to  the  talk  of  his  patients  so  long  as 
it  was  to  the  purpose  and  promised  to  help  him  in  minister- 
ing to  them,  Abernethy  was  quick  to  check  them  in  lo- 
quacity that,  wasting  his  time,  could  be  fruitful  of  no  ad- 
vantage to  them.  Giving  them  good  advice  in  the  fewest 
possible  words,  he  liked  them  to  be  no  less  concise  in  stat- 
ing the  particulars  of  their  ailments.  One  of  the  well-at- 
tested stories  about  the  great  surgeon  closes  with  the  com- 
pliment he  paid  a  gentlewoman  who,  coming  to  him  on 
three  several  occasions,  showed  on  each  visit  a  nice  and 
humorous  consideration  for  his  dislike  of  vain  talkativeness. 

Holding  out  her  wounded  finger  as  she  entered  the  sur- 
geon's consulting-room,  the  lady  allowed  him  to  open  the 
following  conversation : 

Abernethy. — Cut  ? 

Lady. — Bite. 

A  bernethy. — Dog  ? 

Lady. — Parrot. 

Abernethy. — Go  home  and  poultice  it. 

The  second  visit  was  fruitful  of  three  utterances  over  the 
extended  finger. 

Abernethy. — Better  ? 

Lady. — Worse. 

Abernethy. — Go  home  and  poultice  it  again. 

At  the  third  interview  the  finger,  extended  for  the  third 
time,  occasioned  these  words: 

Abernethy. — Better  ? 

Lady.— Well. 

Abernethy  (with  enthusiasm,  whilst  his  twinkling  eyes 
showed  his  proper  appreciation  of  the  lady's  fine  humor) . — 
Ton  my  honor,  madam,  you  are  the  most  sensible  woman 
I  ever  met.    Good-bye! 

In   deciding  whether  an   anecdote  about  Abernethy   is 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  125 

genuine  or  spurious,  readers  should  remember  that  the  great 
surgeon,  besides  being  a  humorist,  was  a  man  of  good  taste, 
high  breeding,  and  tenderest  humanity.  On  perusing  a  story 
which  exhibits  him  as  greatly  deficient  in  any  one  of  these 
qualities,  readers  may  safely  assume  he  had  nothing  more  to 
do  with  the  incidents  of  the  narrative  than  with  the  com- 
position of  the  detestable  carraway-seed  biscuit  that  is  still 
sold  at  confectioners'  shops  under  his  name. 


CHAPTER  V 

WRATH,   GRANDEUR,  MARRIAGE,    AND    MYSTERY 


WARD'S  "Lives  of  the  Gresham  Professors"  contains 
a  picture  of  a  gentleman  in  the  costume  of  the 
eadier  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  kneeling 
within  the  Broad  Street  gateway  of  the  Gresham 
College  as  he  surrenders  his  sword  to  another  gentleman 
who  has  just  worsted  him  in  a  duel.  The  gentleman  on  his 
knee  is  Professor  Woodword,  the  gentleman  on  his  feet  is 
Dr.  Mead,  and  the  scene  represents  the  conclusion  of  the 
passage  of  arms  in  which  the  successful  physician  chastised 
the  satirical  professor  for  certain  disdainful  and  insolent 
words  in  his  "State  of  Physic  and  Diseases."  If  Professor 
Woodword  knelt  thus  submissively — which  is  questionable — 
he  preserved  the  presence  of  mind  to  surrender  his  weapon 
with  a  witty  retort  to  Mead's  ungenerous  demand. 

"Beg  for  your  life !"  cried  the  victor. 

"I  will  when  Pm  your  patient,"  answered  the  professor, 
coming  better  out  of  the  conflict  of  words  than  out  of  the 
combat  with  swords. 

Unless  personal  history  has  exaggerated  the  kindliness  of 
the  man,  whose  lineaments  are  thus  preserved  to  us  amongst 
the  marbles  of  Westminster  Abbey,  he  must  have  admired 
the  spirit  of  his  worsted  adversary,  and  secretly  congratu- 
lated himself  on  opening  nothing  more  serious  than  a  vein 
of  sprightly  humor  in  an  affair  that  closed  without  a  scratch 
of  the  skin  to  either  combatant. 

The  medical  duels  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  not  al- 
ways or  often  so  innocent  as  Mead's  bloodless  encounter 
with  the  Gresham  professor,  and  few  of  them  were  more 
tragic  and  scandalous  than  the  combat  that  sent  Dr.  Wil- 
liams and  Dr.  Bennet  to  another  world.    To  discover  what 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  127 

these  doctors  quarrelled  about  in  the  first  instance  one  would 
have  to  examine  the  pamphlets  with  which  the  combatants 
traduced  one  another,  before  Dr.  Bennet,  whipped  to  fury 
by  his  enemy's  superior  literary  adroitness,  challenged  him 
to  mortal  conflict — a  challenge  that  was  scornfully  declined 
by  Dr.  Williams,  who  had  succeeded  too  well  with  the  pen 
to  be  desirous  of  changing  it  for  a  less  familiar  weapon. 
Indignant  at  the  refusal,  Dr.  Bennet  hastened  to  his  ad- 
versary's house  to  taunt  him  with  his  cowardice,  when  he 
was  repelled  from  the  doorstep  by  a  charge  of  swan-shot, 
sent  into  his  breast  from  the  pistol  of  Dr.  Williams,  who  had 
condescended  to  act  as  his  own  hall  porter.  Severely 
wounded,  Dr.  Bennet  was  retiring  across  the  street  towards 
a  friend's  house,  when  Dr.  Williams  rushed  after  him,  fired 
another  pistol  at  him,  and  then,  drawing  sword,  ran  him 
through  the  body.  Turning  on  his  too  impetuous  pursuer. 
Dr.  Bennet  contrived  to  draw  his  rapier  and  slay  his  as- 
sailant. The  whole  affair  was  over  in  three  minutes.  Wil- 
liams dying  in  the  street  and  Bennet  surviving  him  by  no 
more  than  four  hours.  What  a  ghastly  ending  to  a  squabble 
about  some  question  of  medical  treatment  of  etiquette ! 

A  more  orderly  but  not  less  ferocious  duel  occurred  in 
the  following  century  (1830)  near  Philadelphia,  when  Dr. 
Smith  and  Dr.  Jeffries  demonstrated  their  mutual  brotherly 
love  by  killing  one  another  with  pistols.  No  mischief  was 
done  by  the  first  exchange  of  shots.  At  the  second  exchange 
Dr.  Smith's  right  arm  was  broken — an  incident  that  caused 
him  to  declare  he  could  handle  his  weapon  fairly  with  his 
left  hand^  and  would  rather  die  on  the  field  than  leave  it 
wounded.  Thus  fighting  at  a  disadvantage,  Dr.  Smith,  in 
the  third  exchange  of  compliments,  lodged  his  ball  in  one 
of  his  adversary's  thighs.  It  was  now  Dr.  Jeffries's  turn  to 
demand  another  opportunity  for  satisfaction.  Again,  placed 
at  a  distance  of  six  feet  from  one  another,  the  insane  prin- 
cipals exchanged  shots  for  the  fourth  time,  and  in  doing  so 
obtained  the  desired  satisfaction,  Smith  getting  a  bullet  in 
his  heart,  and  Jeffries  dying  a  few  hours  later  from  the 
ball  put  into  his  breast.    On  hearing  that  his  enemy  was 


ia8  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

dead,  Dr.  Jeffries  remarked  thankfully,  "Then  I  die  con- 
tented," a  state  of  feeling,  however,  that  did  not  prevent  him 
from  declaring  the  highest  respect  for  the  late  Dr.  Smith's 
scientific  attainments  and  generous  nature.  Schoolfellows 
in  boyhood,  these  gentlemen  had  been  intimate  friends  for 
fifteen  years  before  they  came  to  hate  one  another  with  the 
hatred  possible  only  to  medical  neighbors  and  rivals.  Three 
years  had  passed  over  the  graves  of  Drs.  Smith  and  Jef- 
fries, when  life  on  the  western  circuit  of  England  was 
stirred  by  the  cause  celebre  arising  out  of  Sir  John  Jeffcott's 
duel,  fought  near  Exeter  on  May  loth,  1833,  with  Dr. 
Hennis,  who  will  be  remembered  in  medical  annals  as  the 
last  English  physician  to  die  of  duelling  on  English  soil. 

In  the  days  when  doctors  sometimes  settled  their  differ- 
ences about  disease  and  its  treatment  by  firing  at  one  an-i 
other  with  pistols  or  running  upon  one  another  with  flashing 
swords,  Dr.  Antony  Addington  (first  of  Reading  and 
afterwards  of  London,  and  father  of  the  first  Viscount  Sid- 
mouth  of  political  celebrity)  steadily  declined  to  meet — at 
ten  paces,  and  for  non-medical  purposes — any  of  his  pro- 
fessional brethren  who  had  not  graduated  at  either  Oxford 
or  Cambridge,  a  rule  altogether  in  harmony  with  the  pru- 
dence and  nice  discretion  of  the  physician  whose  medical 
eminence  was  due  to  qualities  that  rendered  him  scarcely 
less  powerful  with  politicians  than  famous  amongst  doctors. 
Born  of  gentle  though  not  exalted  parents,  and  educated  at 
Winchester  School  and  Trinity  College  (Oxford),  Dr. 
Antony  Addington  had  followed  his  profession  with  notable 
success,  both  as  a  physician  and  also  as  a  proprietor  of  a 
private  lunatic  asylum,  before  he  migrated  to  London  in 
middle  age,  and,  under  the  protection  of  the  elder  Pitt, 
stepped  at  once  into  lucrative  and  leading  practise  in  the 
capital.  In  twenty-six  years  of  such  employment  he  ac- 
quired a  measure  of  affluence  that  enabled  him  to  purchase 
the  reversion  of  a  fine  estate  in  Devonshire,  and  to  with- 
draw from  the  labors  of  his  profession  to  restful  seclusion 
near  the  town  in  which  he  had  first  practised  it.  For  nearly 
eight  years  had  he  enjoyed  this  retirement,  when,  on  George 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  129 

III/s  illness  (November,  1788),  he  was  ordered  by  the 
Prince  of  Wales  to  proceed  immediately  to  Windsor  to  con- 
sult with  his  Majesty's  physicians  on  the  cure  of  his  Ma- 
jesty, one  of  these  physicians  being  the  courtly  and  well- 
dressed  Henry  Revell  Reynolds,  the  last  of  London's  silk- 
coated  physicians,  even  as  Dr.  James  Hamilton  was  the  last 
of  the  great  Edinburgh  doctors  to  wear,  for  ordinary  cos- 
tume, a  cock-hat  on  his  head  and  buckles  on  his  shoes.  Deli- 
cately precise  and  curiously  foppish  in  every  particular  of  his 
costume — the  well-powdered  wig,  silk  coat,  breeches,  stock- 
ings, buckled  shoes,  gold-headed  cane,  and  lace  rufHes,  the 
costume  he  donned  at  the  dawn  and  wore  in  the  evening 
of  his  professional  career — Revell  Reynolds  was  a  courtly 
coxcomb  to  the  last,  his  care  for  the  elegance  and  faultless- 
ness  of  his  apparel  extending  even  to  the  orders  he  gave  for 
his  last  toilet.  The  weakness,  that  was  a  part  of  his  strength, 
suggested  the  lines  for  his  epitaph : 

Here  well-dressed  Reynolds  lies, 

As  great  a  beau  as  ever; 
We  may  perhaps  see  one  as  wise, 

But  sure  a  smarter  never. 

To  speak  of  Antony  Addington  is  to  think  how  honor  has 
come  to  the  leaders  of  medicine,  and  how  they  and  their 
children  have  risen  to  dignity.  Honor  cannot  be  said  to 
have  flowed  to  them  in  strong  and  steady  stream,  on  the 
contrary,  it  has  come  to  them  in  a  rivulet  so  weak  and  un- 
certain that  even  to  this  day  no  physician,  however  great 
may  have  been  his  services  to  science  and  society,  can  claim 
promotion  to  the  lowest  grade  of  hereditary  dignity,  or  even 
aspire  to  it,  unless,  whilst  serving  science  and  society,  he 
has  also  been  in  the  service  of  the  Court.  It  is  a  question 
whether  Edmund  Greaves  (the  young  physician  who  was 
at  Oxford  during  the  civil  troubles  whilst  the  Cavaliers  held 
the  University)  received  a  baronetcy  from  Charles  I.,  or  de- 
served the  sneer  with  which  he  was  styled  a  "pretended 
baronet"  by  Anthony-a-Wood— a  question,  by  the  way,  that 
could  be  set  at  rest  by  reference  to  the  Oxonian  "Docquet 


130  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Book."  If  the  Cavalier  doctor  received  the  dignity  with 
which  he  is  credited  in  the  fifth  edition  of  "GuiUim's 
Heraldry,"  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  instead  of  being  the  first,  was 
the  second  physician  to  win  the  hereditary  distinction  from 
a  sovereign.  But  even  in  that  case  Sir  Hans  Sloane's 
baronetcy  would  remain  the  first  of  the  strictly  "medical 
baronetcies";  i.  e.,  the  first  of  the  baronetcies  conferred  on 
leaders  of  "the  faculty"  in  consideration  of  their  professional 
eminence.  Though  he  was  a  doctor  of  promise  and  aca- 
demic mark  at  the  time  when  he  is  alleged  to  have  won  the 
bloody  hand,  Dr.  Edmund  Greaves  was  no  leader  of  his 
profession ;  and  if  he  received  so  great  a  mark  of  the  royal 
favor,  the  honor  must  have  been  bestowed  on  him  either 
in  recognition  of  his  loyalty  or  in  reward  of  services  that, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  would  have  been  rewarded 
with  money,  or  for  some  other  consideration  that,  were  it 
known,  would  forbid  the  medical  annalist  to  rate  the  crea- 
tion, in  strict  parlance,  as  a  medical  baronetcy. 

Since  the  Cavaliers  surrounded  Charles  at  Oxford,  seventy 
years  had  passed,  when  Dr.  Hans  Sloane  was  raised  to  the 
baronetcy  in  consideration  of  his  services  to  science,  and 
of  the  honor  and  influence  pertaining  to  him  as  a  leader  of 
the  medical  profession.  The  year  of  the  incident  so  memor- 
able in  the  annals  of  science  and  medicine  was  1716.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  the  order  of  the  baronetcy  had 
existed  for  upwards  of  a  hundred  years,  and  the  world  was 
well  on  in  the  eighteenth  century  before  it  occurred  to  an 
English  sovereign  that  supremely  eminent  physicians  might 
with  propriety  be  elevated,  in  consideration  of  their  pro- 
fessional services,  to  the  order  of  those  dignified  Commoners 
who  are  the  lowest  grade  of  the  hereditary  aristocracy. 
Social  sentiment  has  changed  on  many  questions  touching 
the  relative  worth  of  eminent  individuals  since  Sir  Hans 
Sloane's  elevation  was  canvassed  by  nice  critics  as  a  daring 
and  possibly  dangerous  innovation ;  and  of  late  years  the 
opinion  has  grown  stronger  and  more  general,  that  if  it  is 
well  for  the  sovereign  to  reward  their  services  to  the  State 
with  grants  of  hereditary  grandeur,  doctors  of  the  brightest 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  131 

light  and  foremost  leading  should  be  rewarded  with  a 
dignity  something  higher  than  the  honor  that  is  bestowed 
as  a  matter  of  course  on  every  well-reputed  merchant  who, 
in  the  capacity  of  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  entertains  Royalty 
with  a  Guildhall  banquet.  Now  that  a  poet  has  been  raised 
to  the  peerage  in  consideration  of  the  excellence  of  his 
poetry,  it  is  conceivable  that  some  eminent  physician  or  sur- 
geon may  not  close  his  brilliant  career  without  figuring  as 
the  junior  baron  of  the  Upper  House. 

In  that  case,  though  he  would  live  in  the  annals  of  his 
profession  as  the  first  medical  peer,  even  as  Sir  Hans  Sloane 
is  remembered  as  the  first  of  medical  baronets,  he  would 
not  be  the  first  person  in  our  island's  story  to  begin  life 
with  the  medical  students  and  fight  his  way  to  a  seat  and 
coronet  amongst  the  peers.  Though  the  "Extinct  Peerages" 
are  silent  on  the  point,  it  is  matter  of  some  record  that 
Sylvester  Douglas— the  barrister-at-law  who  edited  "Re- 
ports/' the  politician  who  represented  Fowey  in  successive 
Parliaments,  and  the  busy  placeman  who  in  his  time  held 
divers  offices  of  dignity  and  emolument,  before  and  after 
his  elevation  to  an  Irish  barony — was  an  apothecary  before 
he  went  to  the  bar,  a  fact  that  was  of  course  remembered 
to  his  disadvantage,  and  proclaimed  to  his  ridicule  by 
sprightly  wits  and  envious  rivals  when  the  adventurer  of 
humble  origin  was  on  the  point  of  assuming  the  style  and 
privileges  of  nobility. 

"What's  his  title  to  be?"  cried  Sheridan,  turning  for  a 
moment  from  his  hand  at  cards  to  one  of  a  throng  of  lis- 
teners about  the  whist-table.  "What's  Sylvester  Douglas  to 
be  called?" 

"Glenbervie — Lord  Glenbervie,"  was  the  answer, 
"Glenbervie !"  rejoined  the  wit,  discharging  a  carefully 
prepared  impromptu — 

"Glenbervie,  Glenbervie, 

What's  good  for  the  scurvey? 
For  ne'er  be  your  old  trade  forgot; 

In  your  arms  rather  quarter 

A  pestle-and-mortar, 
And  your  crest  be  a  spruce  gallipot." 


132  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Sylvester  Douglas  was  made  into  Lord  Glenbervie  in  the 
first  year  of  the  present  century.  Thirty-six  years  later 
Henry  Bickersteth  afforded  another  instance  of  a  medical 
practitioner  who,  passing  from  medicine  to  law,  rose  to 
nobility.  The  son  of  a  country  doctor,  Henry  Bickersteth 
was  in  the  first  instance  educated  to  succeed  to  his  father's 
practise  at  Kirby  Lonsdale,  from  which  purpose  he  was 
diverted  by  the  counsel  of  the  fifth  earl  of  Oxford,  whom  he 
accompanied  in  the  capacity  of  medical  attendant  during  that 
nobleman's  Continental  travels.  Acting  on  the  advice  of 
the  patron  whose  daughter  he  subsequently  married,  the 
young  surgeon  went  to  Cambridge,  where  he  in  due  course 
became  Senior  Wrangler  and  First  Smith's  Prizeman,  passed 
from  Caius  College  to  the  Inner  Temple,  and,  rising  to  be 
Master  of  the  Rolls,  entered  the  House  of  Lords  as  Baron 
Langdale  in  the  twenty-sixth  year  from  his  call  to  the  bar. 
It  was  thus  that  the  able  lawyer  and  fine-natured  gentle- 
man was  saved  from  obscurity  and  advanced  to  greatness. 
Had  he  either  missed  the  good  adviser,  or  wanted  the  cour- 
age to  take  the  good  advice,  he  might  have  lived  and  died 
a  Westmoreland  apothecary,  instead  of  marrying  into  the 
house  of  the  Harleys ;  and  contributing  to  the  lustre  of  the 
law. 

But  to  regard  the  most  remarkable  case  of  promotion 
from  the  lower  division  of  the  medical  profession,  the  reader 
must  return  to  the  eighteenth  century  of  England's  story 
and  observe  a  career  that,  beginning  in  a  drug-shop,  closed 
in  ducal  dignity.  Some  uncertainty  covers  the  steps  of 
Hugh  Smithson's  earlier  manhood,  but  it  cannot  be  gainsaid 
that,  the  son  of  a  Yorkshire  baronet's  younger  son,  he  was 
educated  to  be  an  apothecary,  and  for  a  brief  period  fol- 
lowed the  calling  of  an  apothecary  in  Hatton  Garden.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  questioned,  that  in  the  period  of 
his  lowliest  the  young  man  of  gentle  descent,  charming  ad- 
dress, and  fine  presence  looked  confidently  to  the  future  for 
a  brighter  and  more  honorable  career.  Still  young,  on  suc- 
ceeding to  the  Smithson  baronetcy  on  his  grandfather's 
demise  in  1729,  he  sold  the  business  he  blushed  in  later 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  133 

time  to  remember,  and,  withdrawing  from  Hatton  Garden, 
hastened  to  a  better  neighborhood  and  more  congenial  scenes, 
with  "Excelsior"  for  his  motto.  His  purpose  being  to  rise 
in  life,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  so  prudent,  handsome,  and 
adroit  a  gentleman  achieved  his  ambition.  The  only  wonder 
is  that  he  achieved  it  so  completely.  Even  to  the  self-con- 
fident adventurer  it  was  surprising  to  rise  so  high.  For  a 
few  years  he  figured  amongst  the  modish  connoisseurs  and 
dilettanti  of  the  town.  Possessing  quite  as  much  learning 
as  was  needful  for  a  man  of  fashion,  he  affected  somewhat 
more,  and  he  shone  for  a  brief  while  as  a  luminary  of  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries — a  society  he  joined  in  1736  and 
quitted  in  1740,  a  few  months  before  the  town  was  startled 
by  the  news  that  the  handsome  baronet  would  soon  marry 
the  Honorable  Elizabeth  Percy,  the  only  child  of  Lord 
Percy,  next  in  succession  to  the  dukedom  of  Somerset.  It 
accords  with  all  that  is  known  of  Sir  Hugh's  prudence  that 
he  did  not  aspire  so  high  until  the  lady  informed  him  frankly 
that  he  might  do  so.  The  story  ran  that  Sir  Hugh  had  fixed 
his  affections  on  a  beauty  of  far  inferior  fortune  and  de- 
gree, and  was  smarting  under  the  lady's  disdainful  rejection 
of  his  suit,  when  the  fair  Percy  proclaimed  in  a  crowded  ball- 
room her  low  opinion  of  the  lady's  judgment  and  her  high 
opinion  of  Sir  Hugh's  merits.  Words  thus  spoken  to  the 
whole  world,  in  order  that  they  should  be  carried  to  his 
ear,  afforded  Sir  Hugh  all  the  consolation  he  needed  and 
all  the  encouragement  their  generous  utterer  wished  to 
give  him.  Marriage  ensued  quickly,  and  in  the  following 
year  the  baronet  who  had  married  a  baron's  daughter  be- 
came a  duke's  son-in-law.  Eight  years  after  his  accession 
to  the  dukedom  of  Somerset,  Lady  Elizabeth's  father  was 
created  Baron  Warkworth,  of  Warkworth  Castle,  county 
Northumberland,  and  Earl  of  Northumberland,  with  re- 
mainer  to  the  husband  of  his  only  child.  Another  year,  and 
on  his  father-in-law's  death  Lady  Elizabeth's  husband  be- 
came (1750)  Earl  of  Northumberland  and  Baron  Wark- 
worth. What  more  in  way  of  grandeur  could  the  whilom 
apothecary  of  Hatton  Garden  require?    He  asked  for  more 


134  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

and  got  it.  An  act  of  Parliament  empowered  him  and  his 
countess  to  take  the  surname  and  arms  of  Percy.  In  1757 
he  was  installed  a  Knight  of  the  Garter;  in  1766  he  was 
created  Earl  Percy  and  Duke  of  Northumberland;  in  1784 
he  obtained  the  barony  of  Lovain  of  Alnwick,  with  remain- 
der to  his  second  son,  Lord  Algernon  Percy.  What  a  stream 
of  dignities  to  descend  on  the  head  of  the  man  who  had  let 
blood  and  worked  a  pestle-and-mortar  in  Hatton  Garden! 
He  could  afford  to  smile  on  hearing  how  low  fellows  in  the 
coffee-houses  said  his  ducal  coronet  ought  to  be  garnished 
with  senna-leaves  instead  of  strawberry-leaves. 

It  was  of  this  fortunate  man's  son  (the  second  duke)  that 
a  poet  of  the  "Anti-Jacobin"  wrote : 

Nay,  quoth  the  duke,  in  thy  black  roll, 

Deductions  I  espye. 
For  those  who,  poor,  mean,  and  low, 

With  children  burthened  lie. 

And  though  full  sixty  thousand  pounds 

My  vassals  pay  to  me. 
From  Cornwall  to  Northumberland, 

Through  many  a  fair  countree; 

Yet  England's  church,  its  king,  its  laws, 

Its  cause  I  value  not, 
Compared  with  this,  my  constant  text, 

A  penny  saved  is  got. 

No  drop  of  princely  Percy's  blood 

Through  these  cold  veins  doth  run; 
With  Hotspur's  castless,  blazon,  name 

I  still  am  poor  Smithson. 

Satire,  however,  is  seldom  severely  veracious,  and  the 
writer  of  these  caustic  lines  was  less  than  precisely  truthful 
in  saying  that  no  drop  of  Percy  blood  ran  in  the  veins  of 
poor  Smithson,  for  through  his  grandmother,  Elizabeth, 
daughter  of  Marmaduke,  second  Lord  Langdale,  the  Hatton 
Garden  apothecary  was  lineally  descended  through  divers 
female  ancestors  from  John,  Lord  Neville  (of  Edward 
Ill's  time)  and  his  wife,  Maud  de  Percy,  daughter  of 
Henry  Lord  Percy. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  135 

In  the  survey  of  the  honor  that  has  come  to  medicine  in 
the  persons  of  its  celebrated  practitioners  or  their  famiHeSj 
account  must  be  taken  of  the  doctors  who  have  married  into 
noble  houses,  and  also  of  the  doctors  whose  children  fought 
their  way  into  the  peerage  or  acquired  nobility  by  wedlock. 
Sir  Lucas  Pepys  married  the  Countess  de  Rothes ;  Sir  Henry 
Halford  married  a  daughter  of  the  eleventh  Lord  St.  John 
of  Bletsoe ;  and  the  farcical  Sir  John  Hill  became  the  son- 
in-law  of  the  scarcely  less  eccentric  and  farcical  Lord  Rane- 
lagh.  Sir  Hans  Sloane's  two  surviving  daughters  passed  by 
wedlock  into  the  noble  houses  of  Stanley  and  Cadogan, 
Elizabeth  carrying  her  father's  Chelsea  estate  to  the  second 
Lord  Cadogan,  whose  title  has  become  the  familiar  name 
of  the  property.  Marrying  the  niece  and  heiress  of  Sir 
Charles  Saunders  (whose  surname  he  assumed  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  marriage),  Dr.  Huck,  of  St.  Thomas's  Hos- 
pital (1768- 1 777),  bequeathed  his  great  wealth  to  his  two 
daughters,  the  elder  of  whom  (Anne)  became  Viscountess 
Melville  just  four  years  before  the  younger  (Jane)  became 
the  countess  of  Westmoreland. 

Of  eminent  physicians  whose  sons  placed  themselves 
amongst  the  peerage  and  founded  houses  that  bid  fair  to 
survive  to  future  centuries,  two  of  the  most  remarkable 
cases  were  Antony  Addington,  already  celebrated  in  these 
papers,  and  Dr.  Denman,  of  Mount  Street.  Partly  because 
he  was  only  a  doctor's  son,  a  fact  ever  remembered  to  his 
discredit  by  his  political  opponents,  and  partly  because  he 
had  himself  prescribed  a  soporific  pillow  of  hops  for  George 
in.'s  relief  in  1801,  Henry  Addington  (in  due  course  Vis- 
count Sidmouth)  was  nicknamed  "The  Doctor"  by  those  who 
hated  him  for  being  Premier.  More  fortunate  in  winning 
greatness  by  m.eans  that  did  not  provoke  ungenerous  re- 
flections on  his  want  of  ancestral  nobility,  more  fortunate 
also  in  the  moral  endowments  that  never  fail  to  render  their 
possessor  acceptable  to  the  world,  Dr.  Thomas  Denman's 
son  ennobled  a  family  that  is  peculiarly  associated  with 
what  is  brightest  and  most  honorable  in  recent  medical  an- 
nals.    First  cousin,  on  his  mother's  side,  to  Sir  Benjamin 


136  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Brodie,  the  eminent  surgeon,  the  first  Lord  Denman  was 
by  the  marriage  of  his  two  sisters  brother-in-law  to  the 
famous  physicians.  Sir  Richard  Croft,  Bart.,  and  Dr. 
Matthew  BailHe. 

Whilst  some  of  our  Georgian  doctors  mated  themselves 
with  women  of  ancient  lineage,  others  were  fortunate  in 
winning  heiresses  of  commercial  ancestry.  One  of  these 
ladies  (Miss  Corbett,  of  Hackney)  fell  into  the  hands  of  Dr. 
Thomas  Dawson,  a  gentleman  acceptable  to  the  Dissenters 
of  George  III.'s  London  alike  as  a  physician  and  a  preacher. 
A  doctor  on  week  days  and  a  pulpit  orator  on  Sundays, 
young  Thomas  Dawson  was  still  in  the  freshness  of  his 
religious  enthusiasm  and  personal  comeliness  when  he  found 
this  lady  of  unusual  goodness  and  many  thousands  sitting 
by  herself  with  the  Bible  open  before  her.  It  may  have  been 
an  accident  that  the  Book  was  open  at  the  page  where 
Nathan  says  to  David,  "Thou  art  the  man."  It  may  have 
been  an  accident  that  the  lady's  forefinger  called  her  visitor's 
attention  to  these  particular  words.  Accidents  sometimes  in- 
fluence the  course  of  man  for  good  or  evil.  Anyhow,  the 
circumstances  that  may  have  been  accidental  determined  the 
young  physician  forthwith  to  drop  upon  his  right  knee 
and  make  a  request  which  the  wealthy  Miss  Corbett  thought 
well  to  grant. 

In  living  happily  with  the  lady  who  surrendered  herself 
to  him  under  circumstances  at  the  same  time  so  droll  and 
so  serious,  Dr.  Thomas  Dawson  was  more  fortunate  than 
poor  Dr.  Cadogan  of  George  II.'s  London,  whose  domestic 
troubles  were  matters  of  sympathetic  and  humorous  interest 
to  his  many  fair  admirers  in  the  western  quarters  of  the 
town.  A  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  as  well  as  the  Col- 
lege of  Physicians,  Dr.  Cadogan  had  the  wit  to  animate  and 
the  looks  to  fascinate  fashionable  womankind,  when,  at  the 
height  of  his  social  popularity,  he  was  so  foolish  as  to  marry 
— from  motives  that  may  be  left  to  the  reader's  imagination 
— a  lady  who  was  commendable  neither  for  youth  nor  beauty 
nor  amiability.  The  marriage  was  still  in  the  first  year  of 
its  wretchedness,  when  it  was  whispered,  on  the  lady's  au- 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  137 

thority,  that,  instead  of  being  the  faultless  creature  the 
world  imagined  him,  the  physician  was  a  monster  of  false- 
ness and  cruelty.  On  returning  to  his  house  one  afternoon 
from  a  professional  visit,  this  well-punished  gentleman 
found  his  wife  entertaining  a  numerous  party  of  gentle- 
women with  particulars  of  his  arrangements  for  removing 
her  by  poison ! 

"He  is  killing  me,  my  dears !"  the  lady  was  ejaculating 
hysterically,  whilst  her  husband  stood  in  the  hall  an  attentive 
listener.  "He  is  poisoning  me !  I  am  dying — slowly  dying 
of  the  poison  he  puts  into  my  food  and  drink !" 

"Ladies,"  said  the  handsome  doctor  with  his  happiest 
nonchalance  and  best  bow,  as  he  entered  the  drawing-room, 
"Mrs.  Cadogan  is  under  a  misconception.  She  has  taken 
no  poison.  You  have  my  permission  to  open  her  and  satisfy 
yourselves  that  she  is  quite  mistaken" — words  which  caused 
Mrs.  Cagodan  to  proclaim  him  "a  wretch !"  at  the  top  of  her 
voice,  whilst  her  friends  whispered  to  one  another  that  he 
was  "a  dear,  droll,  amusing  creature!" 

It  is  for  the  reader  to  decide  whether  he  should  concur 
with  Mrs.  Cadogan  or  her  friends. 

Dr.  Cadogan's  unlooked-for  and  inconveniently  opportune 
return  to  his  wife's  salon  reminds  one  of  the  great  John 
Hunter's  no  less  unexpected  appearance  at  one  of  those  re- 
unions of  musical  and  otherwise  delightful  people  in  which 
the  elegant  and  superlatively  sentimental  Mrs.  Hunter  de- 
lighted and  her  husband  found  himself  very  ill  at  ease. 
It  is  of  no  news  that  the  philosopher,  who  made  the  world 
wise  without  being  himself  wise  enough  to  keep  his  temper 
under  control,  did  not  live  in  unbroken  harmony  with  his 
wife.  It  is  matter  of  history — though  possibly  of  scandalous 
history — that  he  did  not  make  an  altogether  wise  choice 
when  he  took  to  himself  for  better  and  worse  the  sister  of 
that  knightly  knave,  Sir  Everard  Home,  who  lived  to  bum 
his  deceased  brother-in-law's  manuscripts  after  enlarging 
his  own  scientific  reputation  with  some  of  the  most  impor- 
tant discoveries  recorded  in  them.  Not  that  Mrs.  Hunter  was 
seriously  wanting  in  wifely  loyalty  and  devotion  to  her  su- 


138  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

perb  but  rather  trying  husband.  The  worst  that  can  be  urged 
against  her  conjugal  sufficiency  is  that  whilst  her  husband 
took  life  in  one  way  she  took  life  in  another ;  that  whilst  he 
cared  for  nothing  but  the  pursuits  and  operations  of  his  lab- 
oratory, she  was  chiefly  occupied  with  music  and  poetry  and 
the  pleasures  of  her  drawing-room.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
the  gentlewoman  who  wrote  "My  mother  bids  me  braid 
my  hair,"  and  a  score  of  other  scarcely  less  delightful  ballads, 
surpassed  in  poetical  feeling  and  ability  another  lady  of  the 
same  surname  whose  doings  are  celebrated  in  the  "Pick- 
wick Papers."  It  remains,  however,  that  she  and  her 
husband  would  have  been  better  matched  had  he  been  some- 
thing less  devoted  to  science  and  she  something  less  de- 
voted to  society.  Returning  one  evening  from  a  journey 
some  eight-and-forty  hours  sooner  than  he  was  expected, 
Hunter  crossed  his  threshold  only  to  be  greeted  with  sounds 
of  merriment,  and  to  find  himself  surrounded  with  the  usual 
signs  of  a  fashionable  reception.  Decorated  profusely  with 
flowers  and  hothouse  plants,  the  hall  and  staircase  were  lit 
with  countless  wax  candles,  and  thronged  with  people  un- 
known to  the  master  of  the  house.  In  the  rooms  where 
refreshments  were  being  served  to  the  guests,  who  had  been 
called  together  without  his  sanction,  the  man  of  science 
heard  the  hum  and  laughter  of  many  voices,  whilst  strains 
of  music  came  from  the  crowded  drawing-room,  to  which 
the  irritable  philosopher  directed  his  steps.  Forcing  a  way 
more  quickly  than  courteously  to  the  middle  of  the  principal 
chamber,  he  spoke  these  few  but  effectual  words  to  the 
company,  who  from  the  moment  of  his  abrupt  entrance  re- 
garded him  with  eloquent  looks  of  speechless  astonishment: 
"I  knew  nothing  of  this  kick-up,  and  I  ought  to  have  been 
informed  of  it  beforehand ;  but,  as  I  have  now  returned 
home  to  study,  I  hope  the  present  company  will  retire." 
There  was  a  quick  departure  of  Mrs.  Hunter's  guests,  and 
ere  the  last  had  gone  away  the  many  candles  of  her  salons 
had  been  extinguished.  If  the  lady  deserved  the  punish- 
ment, it  cannot  be  questioned  that  her  friends  were  punished 
too  severely. 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  139 

Few  doctors  of  George  III.'s  earlier  time  figured  more 
bravely  in  London  society  than  Sir  John  Eliot,  who  was  so 
pestered  by  his  fair  and  fashionable  worshipers,  that  he  had 
a  death's  head  painted  on  the  panels  of  his  carriage,  in  the 
hope  that  the  hideous  device  would  frighten  them  from  its 
wheels  and  render  them  less  ready  to  stay  his  progress 
through  the  streets.  On  hearing  that  their  delightful  doctor 
was  a  married  man,  one  of  these  too  adorative  ladies — the 
daughter  of  a  peer  and  cabinet  minister — vowed  to  assassi- 
nate the  wife,  who  was  so  cruelly  and  unendurably  in  the 
way.  Whilst  Sir  John  Eliot  (the  Scotchman)  lived  with 
the  courtiers  and  countesses,  and  enjoyed  the  favor  of  the 
heir-apparent  to  the  Crown,  London  knew  another  Dr.  John 
Elliot  (a  native  of  Somerset),  with  whom  Madam  Schwel- 
lenberg's  physician  may  not  be  confounded.  The  knight 
who  declined  the  matrimonial  overtures  of  a  peer's  daugh- 
ter, because  his  wife  would  not  allow  him  to  marry  her, 
was  a  very  different  person  from  the  gentleman  whose 
strange  and  tragic  career  is  set  forth  in  "A  Narrative  of 
the  Life  and  Death  of  John  Elliot,  M.  D.,  containing  an 
account  of  the  Rise,  Progress,  and  Catastrophe  of  his  un- 
happy passion  for  Miss  Mary  Boydell." 

Coming  from  Somersetshire  to  serve  a  London  apothecary, 
somewhere  about  the  time  of  Sir  John  Eliot's  term  of 
service  to  another  London  apothecary,  the  hero  of  this 
highly  sensational  biography  fell  in  love  with  Miss  Mary 
Boydell,  niece  of  a  London  alderman,  and  had  enjoyed  for 
some  considerable  period  the  proud  position  of  her  affianced 
suitor,  when  it  was  his  misfortune  to  read  in  a  newspaper 
that  Miss  Boydell  had  been  married  on  the  previous  day 
to  some  other  man.  Never  doubting  that  the  Miss  Boydell 
of  the  newspaper  was  his  Miss  Boydell,  the  young  apothecary 
sold  his  shop  and  fixtures,  and  fled  from  the  city  of  heartless 
womankind,  vowing  he  would  pass  the  remainder  of  his 
days  in  communion  with  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the 
birds  of  the  air.  Mr.  John  Elliot  having  gone  off  in  this 
way,  hard  things  were  said  of  him  by  the  deserted  Mary, 
and  still  harder  things  by  her  uncle.    Twelve  years  later, 


140  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

having  grown  weary  of  living  with  the  beasts  and  birds  of 
rural  haunts,  Mr.  Elliot  returned  to  London,  took  another 
shop,  and  was  doing  well  in  business,  when  who  but  Miss 
Mary  Boydell — ever  a  maiden,  never  a  wife,  all  innocent  of 
the  faithlessness  imputed  to  her — should  appear  at  his 
counter,  cry  aloud,  "Mr.  Elliot!  Mr.  Elliot!"  and  fall  into 
a  swoon.  After  mutual  and  satisfactory  explanations — ex- 
planations rendering  it  clear  even  to  the  meanest  understand- 
ing that  Miss  Mary  Boydell  and  the  Miss  Boydell  of  the 
newspaper  were  two  different  Misses  Boydell — the  re-united 
couple  were  soon  a  re-engaged  couple.  But  again  malicious 
fate  separated  the  lovers.  Their  wedding  day  had  been 
fixed  and  their  wedding  clothes  provided,  when  Miss  Mary 
Boydell  jilted  Mr.  Elliot^  in  order  that  she  might  render  Mr. 
Nicols,  an  opulent  bookseller,  the  happiest  of  men.  In 
vengeance  and  despair  the  injured  Mr.  Elliot  loaded  a  brace 
of  pistols  with  powder  and  ball,  and  a  second  brace  with 
powder  and  wadding,  intending  to  frighten  Miss  Boydell 
excessively  with  the  leadless  pair,  before  putting  a  bullet 
into  his  own  head.  The  reader  may  be  left  to  imagine  how 
this  pretty  plan  miscarried  in  Princes  Street  after  the  lady 
had  been  properly  frightened ;  how  Mr.  Elliot  was  tried  at 
the  Old  Bailey  for  attempting  to  murder  Miss  Boydell; 
how,  after  being  acquitted  of  this  capital  charge,  he  was 
remanded  to  prison  to  take  his  trial  for  a  common  assault; 
and  how,  whilst  awaiting  his  trial  on  this  minor  charge,  he 
died  of  a  broken  heart  and  gaol  fever  in  Newgate  on  July 
22d,  1787,  just  eight  months  after  Sir  John  Eliot,  M.  D., 
closed  a  very  different  and  curiously  successful  career  in 
the  softest  feather  bed  and  courtliest  quarter  of  the  town. 

Making  a  deep  impression  on  the  popular  mind,  the 
equally  mournful  and  ludicrous  "Narrative  of  the  Life  and 
Death  of  John  Elliot,  M.  D.,"  was  fruitful  of  numerous 
ballads  and  chap-book  stories  based  on  its  most  thrilling 
incidents.  It  was  also  accountable  for  what  is  most  piquant 
and  absurd  in  the  "Giles  Bolus  the  Knave  and  Brown  Sally 
Green,"  the  burlesque  ballad  composed  in  ridicule  of  Monk 
Lewis's  "Alonzo  the  Brave  and  the  Fair  Imogene."     In 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  141 

these  days  of  literary  and  artistic  revivalism  it  is  conceivable 
that  the  mournful  "Narrative,"  which  has  appeared  in  so 
many  forms  and  with  so  many  variations,  may  be  called  back 
to  popular  favor  by  some  expert  reproducer  of  old  literary 
material. 

At  the  close  of  an  essay  dealing  chiefly  with  medical  love 
and  womankind,  reference  may  be  made  appropriately  to 
the  strange  story  of  Dr.  James  Barry,  whose  name  appeared 
so  recently  as  1865  in  Hart's  "Annual  Army  List"  at  the 
head  of  the  list  of  Inspectors-General  of  Hospitals,  a  per- 
sonage not  to  be  confounded,  as  he  has  been  in  certain 
places,  with  Dr.  Martin  Barry,  F.  R.  S.,  who  predeceased 
Dr.  James  of  the  same  surname  by  just  ten  years.  Entering 
the  medical  service  of  the  army  at  a  time  when  young  men 
were  often  made  army  surgeons  without  having  passed  any 
severe  or  regular  medical  education,  and  at  an  age  when  the 
smoothness  of  his  lips  and  chin  was  less  remarkable  than 
it  became  a  few  years  later,  young  James  Barry  had  scarcely 
joined  the  first  regiment  to  which  he  was  appointed  when 
he  distinguished  himself  by  fighting  a  duel  under  remark- 
able circumstances. 

"Barry,  you  have  a  very  peculiar  voice  for  a  man.  I 
declare  it  might  be  mistaken  for  a  woman's  voice  by  any  one 
hearing  it  for  the  first  time  without  at  the  same  moment 
seeing  you,"  an  officer  remarked  to  the  young  surgeon  at 
their  common  mess-table  on  a  foreign  station. 

"You  are  right,"  Barry  replied,  in  a  tone  of  peculiar 
significance  that  was  the  more  curious  because  it  was  not 
expressive  of  anger  or  any  other  strong  feeling.  "I  have  a 
peculiar  voice,  which,  as  you  say,  might  be  mistaken  for  a 
woman's.  But  it  is  the  only  womanly  thing  you  will  ever 
discover  in  me." 

The  next  morning  the  young  officer  who  had  called  atten- 
tion to  the  young  surgeon's  voice  received  a  challenge  from 
the  gentleman  who  had  declared  with  so  curious  a  com- 
posure that  his  voice  would  be  found  his  only  feminine 
characteristic.  In  the  days-  of  duelling  such  an  invitation 
could  not  be  declined,  although  the  offensive  speech  had 


142  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

been  uttered  without  offensive  intention.  An  explanation 
to  that  effect  could  be  made  after  the  meeting,  but  no  sooner. 
So  the  young  men  met  to  exchange  shots,  and  exchanged 
them.  It  was  a  meeting  from  which  only  one  of  them  re- 
turned. Dr.  James  Barry  remained  in  the  service  for  more 
than  fifty  years  without  hearing  another  reference  to  the 
feminine  pitch  and  quality  of  his  voice. 

The  sixth  Earl  of  Albemarle,  who  met  Dr.  James  Barry 
at  the  Cape  in  1819,  when  the  latter  was  acting  there  as 
staff-surgeon  to  the  garrison  and  the  governor's  medical  ad- 
viser, had  heard  enough  of  the  doctor's  eccentricities  to  be 
curious  about  him,  and  in  his  curiosity  to  gather  some  par- 
ticulars about  him,  that  may  be  found  in  his  lordship's  en- 
tertaining "Fifty  Years  of  My  Life."  A  beardless  lad  with 
reddish  hair,  high  cheek  bones,  and  an  unmistakably  Scotch 
type  of  countenance,  the  doctor  looked  no  older  than  his 
observer  and  eventual  commemorator,  but  as  the  earl  was 
born  no  further  back  than  the  last  year  of  the  last  century, 
Dr.  James  Barry  must  in  181 9  have  been  something  older 
than  he  looked.  "While  at  the  Cape,"  says  Lord  Albemarle, 
"he  fought  a  duel,  and  was  considered  to  be  of  a  most 
quarrelsome  disposition.  He  was  frequently  guilty  of 
flagrant  breaches  of  discipline,  and  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion was  sent  home  under  arrest,  but  somehow  or  other  his 
offenses  were  always  condoned  at  headquarters."  At  the 
same  time  he  was  so  capricious  and  quick  to  take  offense 
that  he  had  recently  turned  away  in  dudgeon  from  the  gov- 
ernor (Lord  Charles  Somerset)  and  left  him  to  prescribe 
for  himself,  on  account  of  something  (of  no  real  importance) 
said  or  done  to  his  displeasure  by  his  lordship.  The  young- 
ster with  hair  and  complexion  indicative  of  a  quick  temper, 
who  fought  a  duel  about  nothing  and  for  the  merest  trifle, 
who  could  turn  on  his  heel  from  the  governor  himself,  may 
well  have  been  credited  with  a  quarrelsome  disposition. 
The  youthful  doctor,  whose  influence  at  headquarters  was 
strong  enough  to  procure  pardon  for  his  frequent  and 
flagrant    breaches    of    discipline,    may    well    have    been 


DOCTORS  OUT  OF  PRACTISE  143 

whispered  about  at  the  miUtary  messes  as  a  social  curiosity 
and  enigma. 

Though  there  is  no  reason  to  question  the  accuracy  and 
general  fairness  of  the  Earl  of  Albemarle's  account  of  this 
perplexing  doctor  as  he  appeared  and  acted  and  was  spoken 
about  in  1819,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  it  a  sufficient 
portrait  of  the  gentleman  jn  the  subsequent  stages  of  his 
career.  By  persons  who  knew  the  doctor  in  his  middle  age, 
and  in  his  much  later  time,  it  is  certified  that  he  was  no 
less  punctilious  than  efficient  in  the  performance  of  his 
duty,  and  all  other  matters  touching  the  tone  and  dignity 
of  the  service,  and  that  the  habitual  courtesy  of  his  address 
and  bearing  preserved  his  temper  from  suspicion.  At  the 
Cape  the  style  of  his  conversation  is  said  by  the  Earl  of 
Albemarle  to  have  been  "greatly  superior  to  that  one  usually 
heard  at  a  mess-table  in  those  days  of  non-competitive  ex- 
amination," and  to  the  last  he  compared  favorably  with 
most  members  of  his  profession  by  reason  of  the  superior 
elevation  and  refinement  of  his  intellectual  tastes  and  in- 
terests. At  all  times  a  lover  of  music^  he  became  an  en- 
thusiastic musician  in  his  later  time.  Though  his  politeness 
was  not  innocent  of  formality,  his  speech  to  his  friends  and 
ordinary  acquaintance  was  so  far  distinguished  by  ease  and 
communicativeness  that  no  one  ever  charged  him  with  ex- 
cessive reserve  and  caution.  In  one  direction  alone  could 
he  be  suspected  of  a  disposition  to  secrecy,  and  of  being  the 
nervous  and  jealous  guardian  of  an  unusual  personal  story. 
No  one  ever  heard  him  talk  freely  of  his  kindred  or  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  boyhood ;  but  though  he  differed  from 
most  men  in  this  particular,  he  resembled  in  the  same  par- 
ticular far  too  many  people  for  his  comrades  to  infer  from 
the  reticence  that  he  was  the  resolute  keeper  of  any  astound- 
ing personal  secret. 

That  he  had  nursed  and  guarded  such  a  secret — and 
guarded  it  successfully  for  more  than  half  a  century  in  a 
way  of  life  that  rendered  its  preservation  a  task  of  peculiar 
difficulty — was  discovered  and  proclaimed  to  the  world  im- 
mediately after  his  death  in  the  July  of  1865.    On  the  day 


144  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

following  the  announcement  of  his  death  in  the  Times 
it  was  officially  reported  to  the  Horse  Guards  that  the  late 
Dr.  James  Barry,  Inspector-General  of  Hospitals,  was  a 
woman.  For  years  the  doctor  had  occupied  the  same  set 
of  rooms  in  Margaret  Street,  Regent  Street,  but  neither  the 
landlady  of  the  lodgings  nor  the  doctor's  black  servant  had 
entertained  even  the  faintest  suspicion  of  the  doctor's  real 
sex  and  resolutely  guarded  secret. 

Whence  came  this  woman  who  went  through  life  from 
youth  to  old  age  in  a  man's  habit,  guise,  occupation  ?  Mrs. 
Ward  (Colonel  Tidy's  daughter)  had  grounds  for  believing 
and  telling  the  Earl  of  Albemarle  that  Dr.  James  Barry  was 
the  honorably  descended  granddaughter  of  a  Scotch  earl, 
and  "that  the  soi-disant  James  Barry  adopted  the  medical 
profession  from  attachment  to  an  army  surgeon  who  has  not 
been  many  years  dead."  One  does  not  see  why  mere  at- 
tachment to  an  army  surgeon  should  have  determined  this 
daughter  of  a  noble  house  to  become  an  army  surgeon  her- 
self, or  why  the  mere  attachment  should  have  determined 
powerful  and  exalted  persons  to  befriend  and  protect  her, 
and  make  it  possible  for  her  to  adopt  and  persist  in  that 
masculine  vocation. 


THE   PROFESSION   IN   EARLY  AMERI- 
CAN LITERATURE 

BY 

SAMUEL  L.  KNAPP 


THE  PROFESSION  IN  EARLY  AMERICAN  LITERA- 
TURE 

(From  Lectures  on  American  Literature,  Published  in 
1829) 

AMONG  the  Hterati  of  our  country,  in  the  different 
ages  of  her  growth,  may  be  numbered  many 
eminent  physicians,  who  were  not  only  useful 
in  their  profession  but  distinguished  for  a 
spirit  of  inquiry  and  a  knowledge  of  letters.  At  the 
first  settlement  of  the  provinces  the  clergy  were  the 
physicians  and  often  the  surgeons  of  the  community. 
They  practised  in  general  without  fees,  from  a  re- 
ligious belief  that  they  ought  not  to  receive  any  compensa- 
tion for  their  services,  as  what  they  could  do  for  the  body 
was  intimately  connected  with  the  cure  of  souls.  This 
union  of  the  professions  had  long  been  in  use  in  Europe. 
The  confessors  of  the  convents  and  monasteries  had  made, 
in  many  orders,  the  healing  art  a  part  of  their  vows ;  and 
after  the  suppression  of  the  religious  houses  in  England  by 
Henry  VIIL,  the  clergy  still  continued  the  art  among  the 
people;  and,  after  the  Reformation  was  entirely  effectedj 
kept  up  the  custom  without  any  dread  from  the  bulls  against 
the  practise  of  dissection. 

The  first  settlers  of  Plymouth  and  Massachusetts  Bay  as 
well  as  those  of  Jamestown  had  physicians  and  surgeons 
with  them.  Gager,  an  eminent  surgeon,  came  to  Charleston 
in  1630,  but  soon  fell  a  victim  of  what  has  since  been  called 
the  spotted  fever.  He  practised  physic  as  well  as  surgery. 
Firmin,  a  physician  and  surgeon,  in  1639  was  settled  at 
Ipswick  but  left  the  profession  for  that  of  divinity,  which 
was  the  safest  road  to  distinction  in  those  days. 

The  skill  of  the  early  physicians  was  speedily  put  to  the 
test,  for,  besides  the  fever  incident  to  the  hard  living  of 


148  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

new  settlers,  the  small-pox  and  yellow  fever  were  soon 
brought  among  them  from  the  West  Indies;  and  after 
several  years  the  "cynanche  maligna"  baffled  all  their  skill 
for  a  time.  The  measles,  often  an  obstinate  disease,  was 
constantly  among  the  new  settlements.  The  yellow  fever, 
which  we  trust  has  left  forever  most  of  our  cities,  prevailed 
in  its  most  malignant  form  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
in  1699,  1703^  ^71'^^  1739.  1740,  1745.  1748;  and  Dr.  Harris 
says  it  was  there  in  1761  and  1764.  This  fever  prevailed  in 
Philadelphia  in  1741,  1747,  1762,  and  1793 ;  in  New  York 
in  1792,  1798,  and  several  times  since.  Hutcheson  says  that 
as  early  as  1693  it  was  prevalent  in  Boston,  It  came  from 
the  West  Indies  in  the  fleet  of  Sir  Francis  Wheeler,  which 
was  sent  from  that  station  to  join  the  New  England  forces 
destined  against  Quebec.  This  fleet  lost  1,300  sailors  out 
of  2,100,  and  1,800  soldiers  out  of  2,400.  Previous  to  this 
period  a  disease  swept  through  the  country  in  1647  the  pre- 
cise character  of  which  has  never  been  known ;  the  Indians 
fell  victims  to  it,  as  well  as  the  European  colonists,  and  in 
1655  it  was  nearly  as  extensive  and  fatal.  The  small-pox 
was  a  great  scourge;  it  prevailed  in  Boston  in  1689,  1702, 
1721,  1730,  1752,  1764,  1776,  and  in  1792;  and  the  prob- 
ability is  that  it  was  as  frequent  in  other  cities. 

We  state  these  facts  to  show  that  there  were  constantly 
subjects  for  the  inquiries  of  the  medical  mind ;  and  as  early 
as  1647,  Thomas  Thatcher  of  Weymouth,  in  Massachusetts, 
turned  his  attention  to  the  subjects  of  diseases,  and  wrote  a 
treatise  on  the  small-pox  and  measles^  called  "A  Brief  Guide 
in  the  Small-pox  and  Measles."  He  was  a  great  man, 
learned  as  a  mathematician  and  a  practical  mechanic,  whose 
inventive  genius  was  equal  to  his  scientific  acquirements. 
He  was  also  a  profound  oriental  scholar,  and  had  explored 
all  the  wisdom  of  the  East  in  the  healing  art.  This  treatise 
of  Thatcher's  was  probably  the  first  book  written  in  this 
country  upon  any  of  the  diseases  incident  to  it.  This 
eminent  physician,  scholar,  and  divine  died  at  the  age  of 
fifty-eight;  a  greater  man  than  whom  this  country  has  not 
since  produced.    At  this  time  some  of  the  physicians  edu- 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  149 

cated  abroad,  attracted  by  the  novelty  of  a  new  country  or 
dissatisfied  with  the  old  world,  came  among  our  ancestors 
to  diffuse  their  information  and  to  find  new  sources  of 
knowledge.  Robert  Child,  educated  at  the  university  of 
Padua,  came  to  Massachusetts  as  early  as  1646.  The  name 
of  this  physician  was  connected  with  an  attempt  made  to 
diffuse  a  spirit  of  religious  toleration,  which  received  the 
censures  of  the  magistrates,  but  which  may  form  his 
eulogium  now,  however  severe  they  were  thought  to  be 
at  that  time.  The  next  physician  and  surgeon  of  note  in 
our  annals  is  Gershom  Bulkley  of  Connecticut,  son  of  the 
learned  Mr.  Bulkley  of  Concord,  in  Massachusetts.  He 
was  a  clergyman ;  in  Philip's  war  in  1676  was  appointed  sur- 
geon to  the  Connecticut  troops,  and  such  was  the  confidence 
of  the  legislature  in  his  abilities  that  he  was  made,  by  their 
order,  one  of  the  council  of  war. 

The  next  publication  from  a  professor  of  medicine  that  I 
can  find,  but  probably  my  researches  may  not  have  been  so 
thorough  on  this  subject  as  on  some  other  subjects,  was 
one  of  Dr.  Douglass  on  the  small-pox,  whose  character  I 
have  sketched  in  a  former  lecture.  He  was  opposed  to  in- 
oculation and  ridiculed  Boyleston,  who  was  there  in  1721, 
introducing  the  practise  of  it.  This  provoked  Boyleston 
to  a  defense.  Cotton  Mather  had  his  share  in  the  dispute ; 
he  was  in  favor  of  the  practise.  At  this  time  Nathaniel 
Williams,  a  clergyman,  a  schoolmaster,  successor  to  old 
master  Cheever,  and  a  distinguished  physician  also,  being 
a  good-natured  man,  wrote  a  humorous  dialogue  upon  this 
dispute  entitled  "Mundungus,  Sawney,  Academicus,  a  De- 
bate" ;  these  names  glanced  at  the  different  characters  who 
had  been  distinguished  in  the  dispute ;  and  it  is  said  to  con- 
tain the  argument  on  both  sides  of  the  question,  as  far  as 
facts  had  then  developed  principles.  The  old  physicians 
spoke  of  this  work  with  great  respect.  Williams  was  a 
man  of  such  benevolence  and  sincerity,  that  in  that  day  of 
gratuitous  epithets,  he  was  called  "the  beloved  physician." 
The  next  work  was  a  treatise  on  pharmacy  by  Thomas 
Harwood,  a  good  medical  writer  of  some  eminence.    This 


150  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

work  was  published  in  1732.  In  1740,  Dr.  Thomas  Cad- 
wallader  published  an  essay  on  the  "Iliack  Passion,"  which 
gave  him  great  celebrity  in  this  country  and  in  England. 
In  1745,  he  published  some  medical  papers  in  the  "Royal 
Transactions,  London."  This  was  the  mode  pursued  by 
eminent  physicians  in  this  country ;  for  the  fact  of  appear- 
ing in  such  a  publication  was  sufficient  to  ensure  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public,  or  that  part  of  it  one  would  wish  to  at- 
tract. Dr.  Cadwallader  was  one  of  the  first  professors  in 
the  medical  art,  who,  in  this  country,  taught  his  pupils  from 
hospital  practise ;  being  one  of  the  visiting  physicians  in  the 
Philadelphia  hospital,  which  was  founded  in  1752. 

Previously  the  subject  of  plants  had  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  men  fond  of  pursuing  nature  in  "the  herb  and 
flower."  Mark  Catesby  had  the  honor  of  being  among 
the  first  engaged  in  this  pursuit  in  this  country.  He  was 
sagacious  and  indefatigable,  but  his  works  are  far  inferior 
to  Clayton's  "Flora  Virginiana."  The  history  of  the  labors 
of  this  great  botanical  work  is  very  singular.  The  art  of 
printing  and  engraving  in  this  country  would  not  admit 
of  printing  a  flora  here ;  he  therefore  sent  his  production  to 
Leyden,  to  Professor  Gronovius,  who  published  it  in  several 
editions;  the  first  of  them  in  1739,  the  second  in  1743,  the 
third  in  1762.  Clayton  began  this  work  in  1705,  when  the 
forests  were  extensive,  and  when  the  lily  of  the  valley  and 
the  mountain  daisy  breathed  their  fragrance  on  the  same 
gale.  Dudley  and  Douglass,  whom  we  have  named  before, 
were  at  the  same  time  engaged  in  the  same  pursuit.  Clay- 
ton's descriptions  of  the  plants  he  collected  are  remarkable 
for  neatness  and  accuracy,  and  often  beautiful  and  elegant. 
It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  notice  that  some  of  the  finest  descrip- 
tions to  be  found  anywhere,  are  in  the  v/orks  of  naturalists 
and  botanists.  Some  descriptions  of  plants  by  Linnaeus, 
Darwin,  and  their  fellow-laborers  in  the  garden  of  nature, 
are  models  of  beauty ;  and  what  can  surpass  in  splendor 
Buffon's  description  of  the  horse,  the  peacock,  and  the 
eagle  ? 

Every  part  of  our  country  puts  in  just  claims  for  dis- 


IN  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  151 

tinction  in  the  medical  profession;  Doctor  William  Ball  of 
South  Carolina,  who  was  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College, 
defended  a  medical  thesis  with  ability  at  Leyden,  in  1734. 
He  was  for  many  years  eminent  in  his  native  State.  Doctors 
Thomas  Bond  and  Middleton  made  the  first  public  dissection, 
in  1750.  This  was  done  by  leave  of  a  court  of  law.  Josiah 
Bartlett  of  Exeter,  New  Hampshire,  wrote  on  the  "cynanche 
maligna,"  which  had  been  prevalent  in  New  England ;  and 
John  Jones  wrote  at  the  commencement  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  a  treatise  "on  wounds  and  fractures,"  for  the  use  of 
the  army. 

I  have  collected  these  facts,  with  many  others  that  I  shall 
not  trouble  you  with,  respecting  the  medical  faculty,  simply 
to  show  that  this  profession  has  had  its  share  in  the  literature 
of  the  country.  Within  the  half  century,  it  is  well  known 
that  in  Europe  and  in  this  country  they  have  raised  the 
standard  of  the  profession,  by  banishing  as  far  as  possible 
all  empyricism  from  their  borders.  This  is  a  profession  in 
which  ignorance  has  heretofore  so  often  hid  herself  and 
gulled  the  world  by  pretensions,  that  the  satirists  have 
in  every  age  poured  out  upon  it  their  surcharged  vials  of 
wrath ;  but  the  historian  now  sharpens  his  pen  to  write  their 
praise.  Hippocrates  describes  a  quack,  as  a  being  "no  lav/s 
could  reach,  and  no  ignominy  disgrace."  The  medical  pro- 
fession has  often  wisely  resorted  to  letters  for  immortality. 
It  is  not  the  cure,  but  the  record  of  it  only,  that  we  can 
see.  To  prove  the  altitude  of  the  medical  character  in  our 
country  we  need  only  look  to  the  earliest  medical  school 
in  America.  When,  in  1768,  a  medical  college  was  estab- 
lished in  Philadelphia,  what  a  cluster  of  distinguished  men 
were  collected  to  give  it  popularity.  Shippen,  Cadwallader, 
and  a  host  of  others  were  ready  and  active  ministers  of 
science  to  diffuse  its  advantages.  "A  good  physician"  (says 
the  Scriptures)  "is  from  the  Lord";  and  to  continue  the 
oriental  phraseology — a  Hospital  well  regulated,  and  bounti- 
fully endowed  to  heal  the  maladies  of  the  mind  and  body, 
may  be  said  to  be  a  "perpetual  lamp  of  life  in  the  temple 


IS2  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

of  nature";  and  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  watch,  should 
never  slumber  nor  sleep  on  their  posts. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  there  was  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  active  men  in  the  profession  of  medicine  who  took 
a  part  in  the  conflict.  Warren,  Church,  Bull,  Finch,  and 
others  had  taken  the  place  of  Perkins^  Cutter,  Clarke,  and 
others  in  Massachusetts ;  and  in  other  States  there  were  also 
many  of  the  physicians  who  were  an  effective  and  active 
class  of  men.  They  had  defects,  no  doubt,  in  their  educa- 
tion, for  they  had  many  difficulties  to  contend  with,  but  none 
that  could  not  be  overcome.  Many  of  them  had  distin- 
guished themselves  by  their  writings  in  favor  of  civil  liberty, 
and  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  push  forward  and  take  an 
active  part.  Some  of  them  entered  the  army  professionally, 
and  others  gave  up  the  lancet  for  the  sword.  Among  the 
officers  of  the  army  of  the  Revolution,  whose  profession  had 
been  that  of  physic  were:  Warren,  Mercer,  St.  Clair, 
Gadsden,  Cobb,  Brooks,  Bricket ;  and  who  were  braver  than 
they?  In  political  life,  the  profession  has  been  conspicuous; 
before  the  adoption  of  the  federal  constitution  the  profession 
could  number  some  of  the  first  men  in  Congress  from  their 
body.  And  since  the  constitution  has  been  in  operation 
there  have  been  also  many  of  distinction  in  public  life.  As 
orators,  there  has  been  no  small  share  of  eloquence  among 
them.  This  has  been  proved  in  the  halls  of  legislation  often, 
but  more  often  and  more  happily  in  the  lecture  room ;  there 
the  subjects  are  neither  artificial  nor  conventional,  but  nat- 
ural, and  nature  makes  her  votaries  eloquent. 

As  poets  as  well  as  warriors,  the  medical  faculty  has  been 
distinguished.  We  have,  in  our  account  of  American  poets, 
mentioned  Hopkins,  Church,  Warren,  Ladd,  Bryant,  Shaw, 
Boyd,  Percival,  and  other  bards,  who,  while  they  plucked 
the  mistletoe  as  Druids,  analyzed,  as  chemists  and  philos- 
ophers, the  nut  gall  of  the  same  oak  on  which  the  parasite 
had  grown.  It  is  impossible  to  mention  all  in  a  short  course 
of  lectures ;  but  I  cannot  pass  over  some  names  without 
paying  a  tribute  to  their  virtue,  if  it  be  only  in  a  hasty 
breath.    In  every  great  enterprise,  more  depends  upon  the 


IN   AMERICAN  LITERATURE  153 

character  of  the  few  who  zealously  engage  in  it  than  upon 
the  many  who  may  take  cursory  and  imperfect  views  of  it, 
and  with  only  faint  motives  for  its  prosperity.  It  was  for- 
tunate that  such  a  man  as  Rush  should  have  been  found  at 
the  close  of  the  Revolution,  to  assist  in  building  up  an 
American  school  of  medicine.  He  was  fitted  for  the  task. 
His  temperament  was  ardent,  and  his  feelings  enthusiastic ; 
he  had  the  rare  faculty  of  communicating  this  enthusiasm 
to  others;  and  his  pupils  pursued  their  inquiries  with  an 
impetus,  derived  from  him,  which  carried  them  rapidly  and 
pleasantly  through  the  labyrinths  of  science.  His  elo- 
quence, his  arguments,  and  his  love  of  labor  did  much  to 
break  the  spell  which  hung  over  the  profession,  "that  no 
man  could  he  qualified  for  a  professor,  in  any  of  the  branches 
of  medicine,  who  had  not  been  in  a  foreign  school."  He 
taught  that  nature  was  the  same  in  every  country,  and  that 
when  she  was  properly  interrogated  her  responses  would 
be  the  same  at  all  times. 

The  medical  school  at  New  York  has  had  a  share  of  the 
intelligence  of  the  country  in  every  stage  of  its  growth ; 
James,  Middleton,  and  others,  distinguished  in  their  day, 
have  been  succeeded  by  men  of  science  and  letters. 

The  medical  school  of  Harvard  University  was  in  con- 
templation for  many  years,  and  liberal  donations  had  been 
made  for  the  purpose  of  its  establishment,  but  the  situation 
of  the  country  forbade  its  commencement  until  1782.  Dr. 
John  Warren,  brother  of  General  Warren  who  fell  at  Bunker 
Hill,  ardent  in  his  patriotism  as  any  man  that  ever  lived — 
who  entered  the  army  as  a  common  soldier  after  the  death 
of  his  brother,  probably  from  the  strong  excitement  at 
this  event,  and  continued  in  it  as  a  surgeon  for  several  years 
— was  at  the  head  of  this  school.  He  had  at  this  time  left 
the  army  and  settled  in  Boston,  in  his  profession,  among 
his  brother's  friends,  and  had  before  1782  delivered  a 
course  of  lectures  on  anatomy.  The  students  of  Harvard 
University  had  an  opportunity  of  attending  them.  When 
the  school  was  opened  at  Cambridge  within  the  college 
walls,  Warren  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  newly  estab- 


154        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

lished  institution,  and  Doctors  Dexter  and  Waterhouse  were 
also  appointed  professors.  Dr.  Warren  was  well  qualified 
for  this  important  situation ;  he  had  genius,  patience,  in- 
dustry, and  eloquence,  and  all  were  required  for  the  com- 
mencement of  such  a  School.  He  secured  the  understanding 
of  his  hearers  while  he  charmed  their  imagination,  and 
without  a  struggle  he  led  them  through  the  course  of  his 
lectures  with  pleasure,  admiration,  and  profit.  The  army 
had  been  a  good  school  for  him,  for  there  he  had  witnessed 
the  diseases  of  camps  and  the  wounds  of  battles,  and  no 
lesson  was  lost  on  such  a  mind.  He,  like  Rush,  had  the 
faculty  of  inspiring  his  pupils  with  love,  confidence,  and 
admiration,  and,  at  the  same  time,  with  an  ardent  passion 
to  excel  in  their  profession.  The  influence  of  his  example 
was  more  powerful  than  his  precepts  in  teaching  the  many 
axioms  he  wished  to  inculcate.  Independent  of  his  pro- 
fessional fame,  he  has  left  some  excellent  specimens  of  his 
taste  and  talents  as  a  classical  writer.  He  has  left  a  son 
who  is  among  the  first  of  his  profession,  and  who  does  great 
credit  to  the  advantages  which  his  father  gave  him,  and 
who,  by  his  attention  to  the  progress  of  knowledge,  has 
quartered  new  honors  on  his  arms  as  a  professional  man. 

The  medical  school  of  Dartmouth  College  was  the  fourth 
institution  of  the  kind  which  was  founded  in  this  country. 
In  1798,  Dr.  Nathan  Smith  was  appointed  sole  professor, 
and  for  many  years  lectured  on  all  the  usual  branches  of 
medicine  taught  in  a  course  of  medical  instruction.  This 
was  indeed  a  Herculean  task,  but  he  met  it  manfully,  pass- 
ing from  one  subject  to  another  with  astonishing  ease.  His 
labors  were  often  embarrassed  by  the  cavils  of  the  sus- 
picious and  envious ;  but  he  marched  on,  in  the  dignity 
of  conscious  genius,  and  conquered  a  prejudice  at  every 
step.  He,  too,  had  a  spice  of  that  enthusiasm  which  dis- 
tinguished his  great  predecessors  and  coadjutors  in  the  task 
of  building  up  the  schools  of  medicine.  He,  too,  had  elo- 
quence to  assist  him  in  making  his  way  against  a  thousand 
evils.  He  passed  from  the  grave  to  the  pleasant  with  such 
readiness  that  the  delicate  shades  of  the  transitions  were 


IN   AMERICAN   LITERATURE  155 

not  always  noticed ;  but  when  the  history  of  our  great  men 
is  written  out,  the  enterprise,  genius,  perseverance,  and  suc- 
cess of  Dr.  Nathan  Smith,  will  be  remembered  by  every 
lover  of  science. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  speak  of  others,  or  to  follow 
up  the  progress  of  the  healing  art  to  the  present  day,  as  this 
has  been  done  with  great  ability  by  several  distinguished 
medical  gentlemen ;  my  only  object  being  in  these  details  to 
show  the  course  of  intelligence  in  this  country  in  this  de- 
partment of  knowledge  as  well  as  in  other  branches  which 
are  more  directly  in  our  path,  in  the  pursuit  of  whatever 
can  give  us  pleasure,  intelligence,  or  profit. 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE 

CHARMS,  TALISMANS,  AMULETS,  ASTROLOGY,  AND 
MESMERISM 

BY 

PROFESSOR  HENRY  DRAPER 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE 

F  we  regard  the  mass  of  people  among  whom  we 
are  Hving,  we  are  soon  convinced  that  intellect- 
ually as  well  as  bodily  they  are  of  very  different 
ages.  Unfortunately  the  proportion  of  those 
adult  in  mind  is  but  small  compared  with  those  adult  in 
body.  Most  men  are  in  the  infantile  or  child-like  condition. 
When,  therefore,  we  speak  of  the  high  intelligence  of 
the  age  we  must  remember  that  the  remark  applies  to  the 
few,  and  that  these  types  of  advance  disseminate  ideas  with 
more  or  less  difficulty  through  the  masses.  Nay,  more,  if  too 
far  ahead  of  the  times,  generations  may  elapse  before  their 
writings  are  credited. 

Because  the  community  as  a  whole  does  thus  lag  behind 
the  age,  it  is  of  interest  to  us  as  physicians  to  study  the 
medical  ideas  of  former  times,  for  we  shall  find  that  all 
those  beliefs  are  prevailing  in  the  various  grades  of  society 
and  must  be  contended  with  and  often,  alas!  submitted  to. 
It  is  instructive  to  the  philosophical  physician  to  trace,  as  in 
the  case  of  Greece,  the  passage  through  fetichism,  miracle- 
cure,  and  astrology  to  a  sound  system  of  medicine  such  as 
that  propagated  by  Hippocrates,  well  called  the  Divine  Old 
Man.  In  the  rest  of  Europe — and  from  this  point  of  view 
Americans  are  Europeans — the  same  progress  has  taken 
place  as  its  nations  have  passed  through  their  infancy  and 
childhood  toward  the  adult  condition. 

In  considering  the  cures  of  all  ages  they  may  be  divided 
into  two  classes:  first,  cures  by  imagination;  and  second, 
cures  by  remedies,  drugs,  or  hygiene.  Under  the  former 
head  should  be  put  miracle-cures,  invocation,  exorcism, 
astrological  medicine^  amulets,  charms,  talismans,  and  mes- 
merism;  and  under  the  latter  a  large  part  of  the  present 
plan  of  treatment,  alchemical  in  its  origin,  in  which  drugs 


i6o  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

are  relied  on  to  crush  disease.  This  will  eventually  be  suc- 
ceeded by  the  expectant  and  sustaining  system,  such  as 
Hippocrates  taught  when  he  says  that  disease  is  caused  by 
fermentations  and  other  chemical  changes  in  the  fluids  of 
the  body,  and  that  relief  comes  when  such  substances  are 
discharged ;  that  such  changes  may  be  local,  as  in  erysipelas, 
or  general,  as  in  a  fever.  The  power  of  the  physician  is  to 
be  shown  by  helping  on  the  elimination.  He  should  watch 
carefully  the  progress  of  the  disease,  and  guide  it  without 
trying  to  stay  it.  When  he  has  learned  the  course  of  a 
disease,  he  may  predict  the  issue  of  a  case  from  experience. 

Let  us,  then,  in  the  first  place,  consider :  cures  depending 
ON  THE  IMAGINATION,  apparently  so  supernatural. 

That  the  mind  can  exercise  a  strong  influence  over  the 
body  might  be  proved  by  a  thousand  instances.  Even  such 
an  insensitive  tissue  as  the  hair  is  authentically  stated  to 
have  turned  white  from  grief  or  fear.  As  Scott  in  "Mar- 
mion"  says : 

For  deadly  fear  can  time  outgo, 
And  blanche  at  once  the  hair. 

The  sad  case  of  Marie  Antoinette  will  occur  to  every 
one's  mind,  although  the  French  revolutionists  accounted 
for  that  in  another  way.  Jaundice  has  been  caused  by  a 
paroxysm  of  anger,  and  the  relief  of  toothache  by  ascend- 
ing a  dentist's  steps.  Who  has  not  suffered  from  a  fit  of 
the  blues,  when  "the  soul  melteth  away  for  very  heaviness"  ? 
Macbeth  may  well  say  to  the  physician: 

Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseased; 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow; 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain ; 
And,  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 
Cleanse  the  stuffed  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart? 

But  more  than  this  Chaucer  sings — 

Men  may  die  of  imagination, 
So  depe  may  impression  be  take; 


4  bv 


•  ^  may  be  local,  as 

ver.    The  power  of  the  piiNsician  is  to 

on  the  elimination.    He  should  watch 

i  of  the  disease,  and  guide  it  without 

When  he  has  learned  the  course  of  a 

• —      "ic  may  predict  the  issue  of  a  case  from  experience. 

V,  then,  in  the  first  place,  consider:  cures  depending 

ON  THE  IMAGINATION,  apparently  so  supernatural. 

That  the  mind  can  exercii'  '  ng  influence  over  the 
body  might  be  proved  by  a  ti  uistance*?.    Even  such 

an  insensitive  tissue  as  the  hair  is  authentically  stated  to 
have  turned  white  from  grief  or  fear.  As  Scott  in  "Mar- 
mi  on"  savs : 

For  (^eadly  fear  can  time  outgo. 

The  sad  case  of  Marie  Antoinette  will  occur  to  every 
one's  mind,  although  the  French  revolutionists  accounted 
for  that  in  another  way.  Jaundice  has  been  caused  by  a 
paroxysm  of  anger,  and  the  relief  of  toothache  by  ascend- 
ing a  dentist's  steps.  Who  has  not  suffered  from  a  fit  of 
the  blues,  when  "the  soul  melteth  away  for  very  heaviness"  ? 
Macbeth  may  wfll  ssy  to  *be  physician : 

Canst  thou  tict  minii-or  m  a  minu  uiscasea; 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow; 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain ; 
And,  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 
Cleanse  the  stuflFed  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart.? 

rr^nre  t^^^  tbis  Chaucer  sings — 

Mr  ■  ■  -■?, 

Sc  .  .J..: 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  i6i 

and  it  is  well  known  that  Sophocles  died  of  joy  when  his 
last  tragedy  was  crowned  with  success. 

Conversely,  the  body  can  react  on  the  mind ;  for  Voltaire 
profoundly  remarks  that  the  fate  of  empires  is  decided  by 
the  intrigues  of  women  and  the  constipation  of  kings. 

Taking  for  granted,  then,  that  imagination  can  govern 
the  operations  of  the  body  in  instances  where  the  impression 
is  strong  enough,  consider  the  case  of  a  nation  in  its  in- 
fancy. Every  natural  object  contains  a  good  or  bad  spirit, 
and  multitudes  are  wandering  disembodied  through  the  air. 
Draper's  "Intellectual  Development"  well  may  say  of  the 
Middle  Ages  of  Europe :  "In  its  opinion  the  earth,  the  air, 
the  sea,  were  full  of  invisible  forms.  With  more  faith  than 
even  by  paganism  itself  were  the  supernatural  powers  of 
the  images  of  the  gods  accepted,  only  it  was  imputed  to  the 
influence  of  devils.  The  lunatic  was  troubled  by  a  like  pos- 
session. If  a  spring  discharged  its  waters  with  a  periodical 
gushing  of  carbonic  acid  gas,  it  was  agitated  by  an  angel ; 
if  an  unfortunate  descended  into  a  pit  and  was  suffocated 
by  the  mephitic  air,  it  was  by  some  daemon  who  was  se- 
creted ;  if  the  miner's  torch  produced  an  explosion,  it  was 
owing  to  the  wrath  of  some  malignant  spirit  guarding  a 
treasure,  and  whose  solitude  had  been  disturbed.  There 
was  no  end  to  the  stories,  duly  authenticated  by  the  best 
human  testimony,  of  the  occasional  appearance  of  such 
spirits  under  visible  forms;  there  was  no  grotto  or  cool 
thicket  in  which  angels  or  genii  had  not  been  seen;  no 
cavern  without  its  daemons.  Though  the  names  were  not 
given,  it  was  well  understood  that  the  air  had  its  sylphs, 
the  earth  its  gnomes,  the  fire  its  salamanders,  the  water  its 
undines ;  to  the  day  belonged  its  apparitions^  to  the  night  its 
fairies.  The  foul  air  of  stagnant  places  assumed  the  visible 
form  of  daemons  of  abominable  aspect ;  the  explosive  gases 
of  mines  took  on  the  shape  of  pale-faced  malicious  dwarfs, 
with  leathery  ears  hanging  down  to  their  shoulders,  and 
in  garments  of  gray  cloth." 

Surrounded  by  such  objects  of  marvel  and  fear,  was  it 
wonderful  that  men  adopted  the  notion  that  disease  was  a 


I&  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

possession  by  devils  ?  When  a  patient  was  struggling  in  an 
epileptic  fit,  did  it  not  indeed  seem  as  if  a  demon  was  striv- 
ing to  obtain  possession  of  his  body,  and  was  not  exorcism 
by  holy  men,  and  fervent  prayer  for  aid  by  some  benign 
spirit,  a  natural  resort  for  their  infantile  and  fetich-ridden 
minds  ?  Such  beliefs  were  as  real  to  them  as  the  ghosts  of 
a  dark  room  are  to  children  now. 

A  profound  desire  to  conciliate  and  form  alliances  with 
powerful  spirits  or  with  the  devil  was,  therefore,  a  natural 
consequence  of  those  times,  and  hence  arose  the  various 
practises  of  magic  and  the  belief  in  witchcraft.  It  is  im- 
possible for  me  to  point  out  clearly  the  periods  when  these 
ideas  originated,  flourished,  and  died^  because  in  a  mixed 
community  there  are  men  of  all  intellectual  ages,  the  in- 
fants being  perhaps  half  a  dozen  centuries  behind  the  adults, 
and  all  cherishing  their  own  delusions.  Multitudes  of  the 
superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  flourish  under  our  very 
eyes.  I  have  but  to  mention  a  horseshoe  to  bring  the  fact 
home.  Even  among  the  most  cultivated  a  leaven  of  super- 
stition survives ;  and  while  we  may  blame  Celsus  for  attrib- 
uting diseases  to  the  anger  of  the  gods — "Mcrhos  ad  nam 
deorum  immortalium  relates  esse" — we  should  remember 
that  many  gentlemen  and  ladies  of  to-day  will  pale  with  fear 
if  salt  is  spilled,  and  would  as  soon  see  their  death-warrant 
signed  as  sit  down  thirteenth  at  a  dinner.  As  physicians  and 
physiologists,  such  things  must  not  anger  you ;  you  must 
humor  them  as  the  delusions  of  children,  not  contradicting 
unless  you  wish  to  be  overwhelmed  with  a  myriad  of  in- 
stances in  point. 

The  obvious  result  of  supernatural  disease  and  forms  of 
cure  was  the  coalescence  of  the  functions  of  priest  and 
physician  in  one  person,  and  a  resort  to  all  kinds  of  magic, 
divination,  sacrifices,  incantations,  exorcisms^  and  eventually 
mercenary  practises.  Even  as  early  as  A.  D.  366,  the  Council 
of  Laodicea  found  it  necessary  to  forbid  the  study  and 
practise  of  enchantment  to  priests ;  but  the  temptation  to 
persist  and  gain  money  by  terrifying  the  sick  and  dying 
was  so  great,  that  the  Lateran  Council,  A.  D.  1123,  had  to 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  163 

forbid  all  medical  attendance  by  the  clergy,  and  that  of 
A.  D.  1 1 39  threatened  the  disobedient  with  excommunica- 
tion. Medicine  was  never  completely  severed  from  theology 
till  physicians  were  allowed  to  marry.  There  is  a  singular 
resemblance  between  this  state  of  affairs  and  that  in  Greece 
1,500  years  before,  just  previous  to  the  time  of  Hippocrates. 

As  the  idea  of  fetichism  died  out  among  the  more  intel- 
ligent classes  of  Europe,  the  gods  and  demons  who  had 
inhabited  surrounding  objects  were  exiled  to  more  distant 
spheres,  and  became  controllers  of  the  planetary  motions. 
Simultaneously  astrology  arose,  and  horoscopes,  nativities, 
and  mansions  of  the  sky  filled  the  minds  of  men.  Mackay 
remarks :  "An  undue  opinion  of  our  own  importance  is  at  the 
bottom  of  all  our  unwarrantable  notions  in  this  respect. 
How  flattering  to  the  pride  of  man  to  think  that  the  stars 
in  their  courses  watch  over  him,  and  typify  by  their  move- 
ments and  aspects  the  joys  or  the  sorrows  that  await  him! 
He,  less  in  proportion  to  the  universe  than  the  all  but  in- 
visible insects  that  feed  in  myriads  on  a  summer  leaf  are  to 
this  great  globe  itself,  fondly  imagines  that  eternal  worlds 
were  chiefly  created  to  prognosticate  his  fate.  How  we 
should  pity  tke  arrogance  of  the  worm  that  crawls  at  our  feet 
if  we  knew  that  it  also  desired  to  know  the  secrets  of 
futurity,  and  imagined  that  meteors  shot  athwart  the  sky  to 
warn  it  that  a  tomtit  was  hovering  near  to  gobble  it  up  1" 

There  is,  nevertheless,  a  delusive  basis  for  astrology,  for 
in  certain  great  natural  phenomena  the  influence  of  distant 
orbs  is  plainly  traced.  The  moon  and  sun  conjointly  rule 
the  tides ;  the  aurora  and  the  magnetism  of  the  earth  seem 
to  depend  on  eruptions  and  cyclones  in  the  sun ;  maxima  and 
minima  of  death  are  related  to  the  rotation  of  the  earth  on 
its  axis,  and  the  inclination  of  that  axis  to  the  plane  of  the 
orbit.  There  is  even  a  subtler  connection :  for  chemistry  has 
shown  that,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  all  the  force  upon 
the  globe,  whether  exhibited  in  the  simple  process  of  com- 
bustion or  in  the  highest  manifestations  of  animal  life,  is 
only  a  minute  fraction  of  the  power  sent  forth  from  the 


i64  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

central  luminary  and  transmuted  here.  Living  beings  are 
truly  children  of  the  sun. 

The  astrologers  were  not,  however,  content  with  any  such 
general  proposition.  Lilly,  in  a  copy  of  his  work,  published 
in  1647,  that  I  have  used,  says:  "There  is  nothing  apper- 
taining to  the  life  of  man  in  this  world  which  in  one  way  or 
another  hath  not  relation  to  the  twelve  houses  of  heaven; 
and  as  the  twelve  signes  are  appropriate  to  the  particular 
members  of  man's  body,  so  also  do  the  twelve  houses  rep- 
resent not  onely  the  severall  parts  of  man,  but  his  actions, 
quality  of  life,  and  living;  and  the  curiosity  and  judgment  of 
our  forefathers  in  astrology  was  such  as  they  have  allotted 
to  every  house  a  particular  signification,  and  so  distin- 
guished humane  accidents  throughout  the  whole  twelve 
houses  as  he  that  understands  the  questions  appertaining  to 
each  of  them  shall  not  want  sufficient  grounds  whereon  to 
judge,  or  give  a  rationall  answer  upon  any  contingent  acci- 
dent and  successe  thereof."  In  this  book  of  900  pages  there 
is  a  world  of  quaint  and  curious  information ;  the  planet 
Saturn,  for  instance,  "signifieth  one  of  a  swart  color,  palish 
like  lead,  or  of  a  blacke,  earthy  brown ;  one  of  rough  skin, 
thick,  and  very  hairy  on  the  body ;  not  great  eyes ;  many 
times  his  complexion  is  between  blacke  and  yellow,  or  as  if 
he  had  a  spice  of  the  blacke  or  yellow  jaundies  ;  he  is  leane, 
crooked,  or  beetle-browed ;  a  thin  whay  beard ;  great  lips 
like  the  black-Moores ;  he  lookes  to  the  ground ;  is  slow  in 
motion ;  either  is  bow-legged  or  hits  one  leg  or  knee  against 
the  other ;  most  part  a  stinking  breath ;  seldome  free  from  a 
cough ;  he  is  crafty  for  his  own  ends,  seducing  people  to  his 
opinion ;  full  of  revenge  and  malice,  little  caring  for  the 
church  or  religion ;  it's  a  foule,  nasty,  slovenly  knave ;  a 
great  eater,  or  one  of  a  large  stomacke ;  a  brawling  fellow ; 
big,  great  shoulders ;  covetous,  and  yet  seldome  rich." 

Three  planets,  it  appears,  "signifie  cures  of  diseases:  If 
by  money  and  good  councell ;  ^  by  medicine ;  $  by  magick 
naturall,  divine  assistance,  or  chance." 

Werenfels,  speaking  of  an  astrological  believer,  says: 
"He  will  not  committ  his  seed  to  the  earth  when  the  soil, 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  165 

but  when  the  moon,  requires  it.  He  will  have  his  hair  cut 
when  the  moon  is  either  in  Leo,  that  his  locks  may  stare  like 
the  Lion's  shag,  or  in  Aries,  that  they  may  curl  like  a  ram's 
horn.  Whatever  he  would  have  to  grow,  he  sets  about  it 
when  she  is  in  her  increase ;  but  for  what  he  would  have 
made  less,  he  chooses  her  wane.  When  the  moon  is  in 
Taurus  he  never  can  be  persuaded  to  take  physic,  lest  that 
animal  which  chews  its  cud  should  make  him  cast  it  up 
again.  If  at  any  time  he  has  a  mind  to  be  admitted  to  the 
presence  of  a  prince,  he  will  wait  till  the  moon  is  in  con- 
junction with  the  sun,  for  'tis  then  the  society  of  an  inferior 
with  a  superior  is  salutary  and  successful."  And  Hudibras 
believes  in 

The  Queen  of  Night,  whose  vast  command 
Rules  all  the  sea  and  half  the  land, 
And  over  moist  and  crazy  brains 
In  high  spring-tides  at  midnight  reigns. 

Shakespeare  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Trinculo  that  Caliban 
is  a  moon-calf — that  is,  a  brute  spawned  by  the  moonlight 
on  the  scum  of  the  sea — because  he  has  "a  very  ancient  and 
fish-like  smell ;  a  kind  of,  not  of  the  newest."  The  accom- 
panying figure  of  a  horoscope  is  from  Lilly's  book,  and  the 
text  explaining  it  is  as  follows: 

JUDGMENT  OF  THE  FIGURE  AFORESAID. 

The  signe  ascending;  vis.,  HOP  is  in  the  figure  most  afflicted  by 
the  corporall  presence  of  ^,  who  is  partly  lord  of  the  eighth  house; 
therefore  from  that  house  and  signe  must  we  require  the  disease, 
cause,  and  member  grieved.  ««  being  the  signe  of  the  sixt,  is  fixed, 
afflicted  by  T;  and  ^5,  who  is  lord  of  the  sixt  house,  is  in y,  a  fixed 
signe,  earthly  and  melancholy,  of  the  same  nature  and  triplicity  thatTtP, 
the  signe  ascending,  is  of;  the  3  being  a  general  significatrix  in  all 
diseases,  being  afflicted  by  her  proximity  to  7^,  and  posited  in  the 
ascendant  in  an  earthly  melancholy  signe,  together  with  the  other 
significators.  did  portend  the  patient  to  be  wonderfully  afflicted 
with  the  spleen,  with  the  wind-cholick,  and  melancholy  obstructions 
in  the  bowels  and  small  guts,  small  feavers,  a  remisse  pulse;  and 
as  the  signe  KtP  is  the  signe  ascending,  and  3- and  ^  therein,  it  ar- 
gued, the  sick  was  perplexed  with  distempers  in  his  head,  slept  un- 
quietly,  etc.     {All  which  was  true.) 


i66 


DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 


TRabetber  tbe  Stcft  woul&  live  or  t)^e,  ant)  vvbat 
bis  disease  was. 

I  perswaded  the  man  to  make  his  peace  with  God,  and  to  settle 
his  house  in  order,  for  I  did  not  perceive  by  naturall  causes  that  he 
could  live  above  ten  or  twelve  days. 

To  this  very  day  a  lingering  confidence  in  planetary  dom- 
ination is  retained.  The  moon  is  believed  to  regulate  the 
weather,  and  particularly  the  fall  of  rain,  when,  in  truth, 
she  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  So  in  our  present 
almanacs  one  page  usually  contains  the  figure  of  a  man  with 
associated  signs  of  the  zodiac.  As  Southey  describes  it: 
"There  Homo  stands,  naked  but  not  ashamed,  upon  the  two 
Fishes,  one  foot  upon  each,  the  fish  being  neither  in  air,  nor 
water,  nor  upon  earth,  but  self-suspended,  as  it  appears,  in 
the  void.  Aries  has  alighted  with  two  feet  on  Homo's  head, 
and  has  sent  a  shaft  through  the  forehead  into  the  brain; 
Taurus  has  quietly  seated  himself  across  his  neck ;  the  Gem- 
ini are  riding  astride  a  little  below  his  right  shoulder.  Th^ 
whole  trunk  is  laid  open,  as  if  part  of  the  old  accursed  pun- 
ishment for  high  treason  had  been  performed  upon  him. 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  167 

The  Lion  occupies  the  thorax  as  his  proper  domain,  and 
the  Crab  is  in  possession  of  the  abdomen;  Sagittarius,  vo- 
lant in  the  void,  has  just  let  fly  an  arrow,  which  is  on  the 
way  to  his  right  arm ;  Capricornus  breathes  out  a  visible  in- 
fluence that  penetrates  both  knees ;  Aquarius  inflicts  similar 
punctures  upon  both  legs ;  Virgo  fishes,  as  it  were,  at  the 
intestines;  Libra  at  that  part  affected  by  schoolmasters  in 
their  anger ;  and  Scorpio  takes  the  wickedest  aim  of  all." 

This  figure  is  stated  by  Champollion  to  be  derived  by  de- 
scent from  the  Egyptian  ritual  for  the  dead,  and  is  often 
found  in  their  papyri. 

So,  again,  doctors  still  put  at  the  beginning  of  a  prescrip- 
tion the  astrological  sign  for  Jupiter,  2(  looking  like  r, 
and  supposed  to  mean  recipe. 

I  might  multiply  observations  upon  astrology  ad  in£nitum; 
for  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  books  have  been  written  in 
various  tongues,  some  legible  and  some  utterly  incomprehen- 
sible, some  by  arrant  impostors,  but  more  by  men  full  of 
faith.  But  we  must  pass  to  other  Imagination-cures,  such 
as  talismans,  amulets,  and  charms.  It  is  only  necessary  in 
closing  to  state  that  in  early  Christian  times  the  hold  of 
Greek  and  Latin  astrology  was  found  to  be  so  strong  that 
the  Church  had  to  countenance  it,  but,  of  course,  the  names 
of  heathen  deities  were  suitably  replaced.  For  instance,  in 
the  left  hand  the  top  joint  of  the  thumb  was  dedicated  to  the 
Saviour,  the  second  joint  to  the  Virgin ;  the  top  joint  of  the 
forefinger  to  St.  James,  the  second  to  St.  John  the  Evangel- 
ist, the  third  to  St.  Peter ;  the  first  joint  of  the  second  finger 
to  St.  Simon,  the  second  to  St.  Matthew,  the  third  to  St. 
James  the  Greater,  etc. 

Talismans  were  natural  objects,  generally  imagined  to  be 
marked  like  the  signs  of  the  planets  or  zodiac,  but  sometimes 
they  were  precious  stones.  They  are  confounded  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  with  amulets,  which  Arabic  word  signifies  any- 
thing suspended.  Charms,  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  Latin 
carmen,  a  song,  refer  to  written  spells,  collections  of  words 
often  without  sense,  like  the  famous  Abracadabra^ 

In  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  as  so  interestingly  narrated 


i68  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

by  Scott  in  the  Talisman,  faith  in  the  virtues  of  precious 
stones  was  universal,  and  to  each  was  attributed  special 
properties.  The  heliotrope,  or  bloodstone,  now  worn  in 
seal  rings  so  much,  "stancheth  blood,  driveth  away  poisons, 
preserveth  health ;  yea,  and  some  write  that  it  provoketh 
raine  and  darkeneth  the  sunne,  suffering  not  him  that  beareth 
it  to  be  abused."  "A  topaze  healeth  the  lunaticke  person 
of  his  passion  of  lunacie."  The  garnet  assisteth  sorrow  and 
recreates  the  heart;  the  chrysolite  is  the  friend  of  wisdom 
and  enemy  of  folly.  The  great  quack,  Dr.  Dee,  had  a  lump 
of  cannel-coal  that  could  predict. 

In  the  fancied  resemblances  found  among  talismans  none 
are  more  extraordinary  than  those  associated  with  color. 
Because  Avicenna  had  said  that  red  corpuscles  moved  the 
blood,  red  colors  must  be  employed  in  diseases  of  that  fluid, 
and  even  in  1765  the  Emperor  Francis  I.  was  wrapped  up  in 
scarlet  cloth  to  cure  the  small-pox,  and  so  died.  Flannel 
dyed  nine  times  in  blue  was  good  for  scrofula. 

Among  amulets  that  of  Pope  Adrian  was  curious :  it  con- 
sisted of  dried  toad,  arsenic,  tormentil,  pearl,  coral,  hyacinth, 
smaragd,  and  tragacanth,  and  was  hung  round  the  neck,  and 
never  removed.  The  arsenic  amulets  worn  during  the 
plague  in  London  were  active  on  the  principle  that  one 
poison  would  prevent  the  entry  of  another.  Ashmole's  cure 
for  ague  was  to  take,  early  in  the  morning,  a  good  dose  of 
elixir,  and  hang  three  spiders  about  his  neck,  "which  drove 
it  away,  God  be  thanked." 

Such  statements  may  cause  a  smile,  and  men  may  say  that 
it  is  well-nigh  incredible  that  similar  silly  superstitions 
should  ever  have  seriously  influenced  people ;  but  the  laugh 
is  soon  turned  if  we  inquire  whether  any  of  these  beliefs 
have  come  down  to  our  time.  How  many  now  think  there 
is  virtue  in  camphor  to  prevent  infection ;  that  sulphur  or 
a  horse-chestnut  in  the  pocket  is  good  for  rheumatism !  Go 
to  Italy  and  see  grown-up  men  carrying  amulets,  like  a  partly 
extended  hand,  to  prevent  the  effects  of  the  evil-eye.  Coral 
is  still  worn  as  recommended  by  Paracelsus  for  infants,  and 
many  add  the  mineral  bells  of  silver,  by  which  sorcerers 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  169 

and  witches  may  be  frightened  off,  on  the  same  principle  that 
bigger  bells  were  used  to  scare  comets  away.  Perhaps  in 
this  latter  instance  mothers  act  unwittingly,  and  only  know 
by  tradition  that  there  is  some  good  in  the  toy,  for  in  many 
cases  usage  has  continued  a  practise  the  significance  of  which 
is  lost.  As  an  illustration,  necklaces  and  bracelets  were  orig- 
inally not  articles  of  ornament,  but  real  amulets ;  those  found 
on  Egyptian  mummies  are  carved  with  characters  relating 
to  the  future  of  the  body,  the  scarabseus,  or  tumble-bug, 
typifying  symbolically  by  his  performances  the  resurrection. 

With  regard  to  charms  a  wrong  idea  prevails:  the  true 
charm  is  written,  and  is  not  a  natural  or  carved  object; 
watch  charms  are  in  reality  talismans  or  amulets.  The  vir- 
tue that  resides  in  such  verses  is  very  great,  for  Cato  the 
Censor  says  that  a  dislocation  may  be  reduced  by  taking  a 
reed  four  or  five  feet  long,  cutting  it  in  the  middle,  and  let- 
ting two  men  hold  the  ends  opposite  one  another.  While 
this  is  doing,  say,  "In  Alio  S.  F.  Motas  vaeta,  Daries 
Dardaries  Astaries  Dissunapitur,"  then  separate  them 
with  a  piece  of  iron,  and  bind  them  to  the  dislocation.  It 
has  been  naively  remarked  that  this  system  of  cure  works 
best  in  nervous  and  periodical  disorders.  The  phylacteries 
of  the  Pharisees  were  charms. 

Allied  to  charms  was  faith  in  numbers,  and  particularly  in 
odd  numbers.  "There's  luck  in  odd  numbers,  says  Rory 
O'More,"  or,  to  go  back  a  few  centuries,  "Numero  Deus 
impare  gaudet"  (God  enjoys  an  odd  number)  ;  or,  still 
earlier,  hear  Pythagoras  declare  that  number  is  the  essence 
or  first  principle  of  things.  Singularly  enough,  modern 
chemistry,  in  adopting  the  atomic  theory  and  symbolic  nota- 
tion, seems  to  lend  itself  to  this  conclusion,  for  it  couples 
hydrogen  with  i,  oxygen  with  16,  etc.;  and  our  daily  papers 
attribute  special  powers  to  the  seventh  daughter  of  a  sev- 
enth daughter,  as  the  advertising  columns  show.  The  taint 
of  old  things  hangs  about  us  yet. 

Perhaps  of  all  forms  of  cure  the  most  miraculous,  not  in 
its  effects,  but  as  illustrating  the  credulousness  of  men,  and 
their  utter  blindness  to  contradictions  staring  them  in  the 


170  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

face,  was  the  royal  touch  for  king's-evil.  Of  course  no 
scrofulous  patient  ever  could  have  been  benefited,  and  yet 
Charles  II.,  between  May,  1662,  and  April,  1682,  touched 
92,107  persons ;  he  had  to  set  a  regular  day,  Friday,  for 
the  purpose,  and  often  touched  250  persons  at  a  sitting,  pre- 
senting each  with  a  touch-piece  of  gold.  I  suspect  that 
this  gift  must  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  number  of 
cures,  for  impostors  were  drawn  by  multitudes,  and  yet  he 
had  the  patients  sifted  out  by  his  surgeon  before  they  were 
presented.  Johnson,  the  great  lexicographer,  when  four 
years  old,  among  others,  was  touched  by  Queen  Anne,  but 
without  avail.  How  such  a  belief  could  have  been  sustained 
surpasses  comprehension ;  but  yet  many  of  you  may  remem- 
ber Dr.  Newton  and  his  imposing  of  hands,  in  the  vicinity  of 
Cooper  Union,  within  a  few  years. 

On  the  imagination-cures  I  have  thus  far  spoken  of,  all, 
doubtless,  put  a  common  estimate ;  but  in  the  next,  the  last 
I  shall  refer  to,  people  now  would  begin  to  divide;  and 
should  I  venture  into  our  own  times  and  mock  at  psychic 
force  and  table-tipping,  angry  passions  might  rise  and  har- 
mony be  disturbed. 

Mesmerism  originated  at  the  same  period  as  our  Revolu- 
tion, and  was  in  reality  an  attempt  to  replace  demons  and 
spirits  by  a  natural  force — magnetism — and  thus  come  into 
relation  with  the  spirit  of  the  times.  By  the  ingenious  co- 
alescence of  truths  established  by  experiment  with  statements 
resting  on  nothing,  multitudes  were,  and  are  still,  deluded. 
Mesmer  began  by  expounding  a  truth  which  is  more  and 
more  forcing  itself  on  the  attention  of  scientific  men :  "That 
the  sun^  moon,  and  fixed  stars  mutually  affect  each  other  in 
their  orbits ;  that  they  cause  and  direct  in  our  earth  a  flux 
and  reflux  not  only  in  the  sea  but  in  the  atmosphere ;  that 
there  is  a  medium  of  a  subtile  and  mobile  nature  which  per- 
vades the  universe,  and  associates  all  things  together  in 
mutual  intercourse  and  harmony."  Sure  enough,  electricity 
is  such  a  medium. 

The  application  of  magnetic  ideas  to  cure  does  not  belong 
to  Mesmer :  it  had  been  practised  long  before,  for  Paracelsus 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  171 

gives  a  method  of  transplanting  diseases  from  man  into  the 
earth :  "Take  a  magnet  impregnated  with  mummy  and 
mixed  with  rich  earth  ;  in  the  earth  sow  some  seeds  that  have 
a  congruity  or  homogeneity  with  the  disease ;  then  let  this 
earth,  well  sifted  and  mixed  with  mummy,  be  laid  in  an 
earthen  vessel,  and  let  the  seeds  committed  to  it  be  watered 
daily  with  a  lotion  in  which  the  diseased  limb  or  body  has 
been  washed.  Thus  will  the  disease  be  transplanted  from 
the  human  body  to  the  seeds  which  are  in  the  earth.  Hav- 
ing done  this,  transplant  the  seeds  from  the  earthen  vessel 
to  the  ground,  and  wait  till  they  begin  to  sprout  into  herbs ; 
as  they  increase  the  disease  will  diminish,  and  when  they 
have  arrived  at  their  full  growth  it  will  disappear  altogether." 

Kircher  had  a  remarkable  plan  for  reducing  hernia,  con- 
sisting in  putting  a  poultice  of  iron  filings  on  the  outside,  and 
then  causing  the  patient  to  swallow  a  magnet,  ground  to 
powder,  which,  when  it  arrived  opposite  the  spot,  would 
draw  in  the  tumor. 

Magnetism  was  also  applied  to  surgery,  and  gave  rise  to 
weapon  salves,  which  were  an  improvement  on  those  of 
ancient  times,  such  as  the  following,  recommended  by  Para- 
celsus :  "Take  of  moss  growing  on  the  head  of  a  thief  who 
has  been  hanged  and  left  in  the  air,  of  real  mummy,  of 
human  blood  still  warm,  each  one  ounce ;  of  human  suet  two 
ounces ;  of  linseed-oil,  turpentine,  and  Armenian  bole  each 
two  ounces.  Mix  all  well  in  a  mortar,  and  keep  the  salve  in 
an  oblong  narrow  urn."  The  sword  was  to  be  dipped  in 
blood  from  the  wound  and  anointed  with  the  salve,  and  put 
in  a  cool  place.  The  wound  was  to  be  kept  clean,  covered 
with  linen,  and  dressed  every  day. 

Dryden,  in  his  Tempest,  has  the  following  dialogue  be- 
tween Hippolito  and  Miranda : 

Hip.    Oh!  my  wound  pains  me. 
Mir.    I  am  come  to  ease  you. 

[She  unwraps  the  sword. 
Hip.    Alas !  I  feel  the  cold  air  come  to  me ; 
My  wound  shoots  worse  than  ever. 

[She  wipes  and  anoints  the  sword. 


172  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Mir.    Does  it  still  grieve  you? 

Hip.    Now  methinks  there's  something 
Laid  just  upon  it. 

Mir.     Do  you  feel  no  ease? 

Hip.    Yes,  yes:  upon  the  sudden  all  the  pain 
Is  leaving  me.     Sweet  Heaven !  how  I  am  eased ! 

Pettigrew,  in  his  valuable  work,  speaking  of  such  salves 
and  sympathetic  powders,  says :  "It  is  not  at  all  surprising 
that  cures  of  this  description  should  soon  be  looked  upon  as 
the  result  of  magic,  incantations,  and  other  supernatural 
means,  and  that  the  professors  of  the  sympathetic  art,  there- 
fore, should  have  been  anxious  to  account  for  the  effects  by 
natural  causes.  Such  appears  to  have  been  Sir  Kenelm  Dig- 
by's  chief  aim  before  the  doctors  of  Montpellier,  and  sim- 
ilar reasonings  upon  the  subject  may  be  found  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  supporters  of  the  system  already  mentioned,  who 
advocated  the  plan  of  treatment,  and  vouched  for  its  effi- 
cacy. In  this  search  for  natural  means  to  account  for  the 
phenomena  obtained,  the  obvious  one  was  overlooked,  and 
the  history  I  have  given  would  have  been  uninteresting  but 
for  the  valuable  practical  lesson  which  these  experiments 
have  afforded.  We  owe  to  this  folly  the  introduction  of  one 
of  the  first  principles  of  surgery — one  which  in  this  country 
has  done  more  to  advance  the  science  than  any  other  be- 
sides— one  which  has  saved  a  vast  amount  of  human  suf- 
fering, and  preserved  innumerable  lives.  The  history  of  the 
doctrine  of  healing  wounds  by  the  power  of  sympathy  is 
the  history  of  adhesion,  the  history  of  union  by  the  first  in- 
tention— a  practise  which  until  the  time  of  John  Hunter  was 
never  fairly  developed  or  distinctly  comprehended.  .  .  . 
An  incised  wound  is  the  most  simple  of  its  kind ;  this,  it 
must  be  remembered,  was  the  description  of  wounds  to 
which  the  sympathetica!  curers  resorted,  and  their  secret  of 
cure  is  to  be  explained  by  the  rest  and  quiet  which  the 
wounded  parts  were  permitted  to  enjoy,  in  opposition  to  the 
ordinary  treatment  under  the  fallacious  doctrine  and  prac- 
tise of  that  day  of  digesting,  mundificating,  incarnating,  etc. 
Surgeons  in  former  times  seem  really  by  their  modes  of 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  173 

treatment  to  have  tried  how  far  it  was  possible  to  impede, 
instead  of  to  faciHtate,  the  processes  of  nature,  and  to  those 
who  are  acquainted  with  modern  surgery  it  almost  appears 
miraculous  that  they  ever  should  have  been  able  to  have 
produced  union  of  any  wound  whatever.  What  is  the  mode 
of  treatment  now  employed  by  a  surgeon  in  the  healing  of 
a  wound  ?  To  clear  it  from  extraneous  matter,  to  bring  the 
edges  in  apposition,  to  keep  them  in  contact  by  a  proper 
bandage,  to  modify  temperature,  and  to  give  rest.  What  is 
this  but  the  mode  of  procedure  on  the  part  of  the  sympathet- 
ical  curers?  They  washed  the  wound  with  water,  kept  it 
clean  and  undisturbed,  and  in  a  few  days  the  union  of  parts 
— the  process  of  adhesion — was  perfected,  and  the  cure  was 
complete.  The  doctrine  of  adhesion — the  exudation  of 
lymph,  the  junction  of  old  or  the  formation  of  new  vessels, 
and  the  consequent  agglutination  of  parts — was  then  ill 
understood ;  subtle  and  in  many  instances,  it  must  be  admit- 
ted, ingenious  reasons  were  resorted  to  to  account  for  the 
eflfects  produced,  and  the  true  solution  of  the  process  was 
overlooked.  The  effect  was  apparent,  but  the  cause  was 
obscure." 

Mesmer's  operations  depended  on  exciting  the  imagination 
by  every  device  that  could  appeal  to  the  senses.  His  house 
was  luxuriously  furnished,  lighted  by  the  richest  stained 
glass,  perfumed  by  the  most  overwhelming  odors,  and  filled 
with  a  sighing  of  sweet  music  and  soft  female  voices.  Ac- 
cording to  Mackay's  description:  "In  the  centre  of  a 
saloon  was  placed  an  oval  vessel  about  four  feet  in  its  long- 
est diameter  and  a  foot  deep.  In  this  were  laid  a  number  of 
wine-bottles  filled  with  magnetized  water,  well  corked  up, 
and  disposed  in  radii  with  their  necks  outward.  Water  was 
then  poured  into  the  vessel  so  as  just  to  cover  the  bottles, 
and  filings  of  iron  were  thrown  in  occasionally  to  heighten 
the  magnetic  effect.  The  vessel  was  covered  with  an  iron 
cover  pierced  with  many  holes,  and  was  called  the  baquet. 
From  each  hole  issued  a  long  movable  rod  of  iron,  which  the 
patients  were  to  apply  to  such  parts  of  their  bodies  as  were 
afflicted.    Around  this  baquet  the  patients  were  directed  to 


174  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

sit,  holding  each  other  by  the  hand,  and  pressing  their  knees 
together  as  closely  as  possible,  to  facilitate  the  passage  of 
the  magnetic  fluid  from  one  to  the  other.  Then  came  in 
the  assistant  magnetizers,  generally  strong,  handsome  young 
men,  to  pour  into  the  patient  from  their  finger-tips  fresh 
streams  of  the  wondrous  fluid.  They  embraced  the  pa- 
tients between  the  knees,  rubbed  them  gently  down  the 
spine  and  in  the  course  of  the  nerves,  using  gentle  pressure 
on  the  breasts  of  the  ladies,  and  staring  them  out  of  coun- 
tenance to  magnetize  them  by  the  eye.  Gradually  the  cheeks 
of  the  ladies  began  to  glow,  their  imaginations  to  become  in- 
flamed, and  off  they  went  one  after  another  in  convulsive 
fits."  But  enough  of  such  perilous  proceedings  and  the 
libertine  societies  based  upon  them ;  let  us  turn  to  systems 
and  to  CURES  by  remedies. 

All  treatment  by  drugs  was  based  on  alchemical  ideas, 
which  in  their  turn  were  an  offshoot  of  pantheism.  The 
whole  world  has  a  soul ;  hence  every  object  has  a  soul  or 
spirit,  which  may,  by  suitable  means,  be  expressed  or  so- 
licited out.  Fire  and  distillation,  with  incantations  and 
charms,  enable  the  philosopher  to  subtilize  and  purify  these 
essences,  and  ascertain  and  utilize  their  various  properties. 
So  a  spirit  could  then,  as  now,  be  procured  from  wine  more 
powerful  than  the  wine,  and  a  ghost  evoked  from  chalk  able 
to  tear  apart  the  strongest  metal  vessel. 

The  spirit  of  the  most  noble  of  metals  was  long  sought  for 
as  the  elixir  of  life.  Geber  is  made  to  say  it  should  assuredly 
cure  all  maladies,  for  gold  is  the  only  metal  without  disease ; 
but  when  he  discovered  aqua  regia,  and  had  the  gold  in  a 
potable  or  dissolved  condition,  how  intense  must  have  been 
his  disappointment!  It  is  devoid  of  curative  property. 
Albertus  Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  however,  discov- 
ered enough  of  the  secret  of  life  to  animate  a  figure  of 
brass,  and  make  it  perform  the  duties  of  a  domestic ;  house- 
keepers say  that  a  brazen  kind  of  servant  exists  to  this  day. 

Upon  equally  authentic  testimony  it  is  asserted  that  Alain 
de  Lisle  added  sixty  years  to  his  life,  and  a  recipe  by  Arnold 
di  Vilanova  shows  how  to  add  one  hundred  years.     Rub 


DELUSIONS  OF  MEDICINE  17S 

yourself  two  or  three  times  a  week  with  marrow  of  cassia; 
every  night  put  a  plaster  of  saffron,  rose  leaves,  sandalwood, 
aloes,  and  amber  liquefied  in  oil  of  roses  and  wax  over  the 
heart.  In  the  morning  inclose  the  plaster  in  a  leaden  box ; 
eat  chickens  that  have  been  first  starved  and  then  fed  on  a 
broth  of  serpents  and  vinegar  thickened  with  wheat  and 
bran. 

I  might  go  on  with  these  details  for  days,  from  the  ethereal 
discoveries  of  Heydon,  the  Rosicrucian,  who  thought  a  man 
might  live  without  eating  or  drinking,  and  that  there  was  a 
"fine  foreign  fatness"  in  pure  air,  and  that  a  plaster  of 
nicely  cooked  meat  on  the  epigastrium  would  satisfy  the 
most  voracious — through  all  the  search  for  the  elixir  vitae, 
the  philosopher's  stone,  and  the  powder  of  projection,  up  to 
those  really  grand  discoveries  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of 
modern  chemistry,  and  are  the  basis  of  our  daily  comforts 
and  present  medication.  But  we  have  had  enough  of  the 
follies  of  our  ancestors :  let  us  delude  ourselves  into  the  be- 
lief that  we  are  men  and  they  were  children,  and  leave  to 
future  times  the  pleasing  task  of  pulling  us  to  pieces,  and 
laughing  at  our  faith  in  drugs  and  fragmentary  knowledge 
of  the  real  course  and  nature  of  disease.  When  science  has 
displaced  quackery ;  when  the  organic  chemistry  of  the  body 
is  understood,  and  missing  ingredients  can  be  supplied  and 
noxious  ones  expelled ;  when  dangerous  germs  are  filtered 
from  the  air  men  breathe,  the  food  they  eat,  and  the  water 
they  drink — then  medicine  will  become  exact,  and  cease  to 
be  uncertain. 

The  ground-work  for  such  hopes  is  partly  found  in  the 
tendency  that  the  advanced  medical  men  of  this  day  have  to 
determine  the  efficacy  of  treatment  by  experiment,  and  not 
by  faith  and  hypothesis.  To  be  sure,  the  patient  must  be 
encouraged  to  hope  for  the  best  results,  and  not  be  harassed 
by  the  doubts  that  beset  the  mind  of  his  physician,  to  whom 
the  empirical  nature  of  treatment  is  only  too  obvious. 

But  more  efficacious  than  this  has  been,  and  will  be,  the 
abandonment  of  the  idea  that,  in  addition  to  a  soul,  the 
body  of  man  presents  another,  lower  form  of  spirit — a  vital 


176  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

force  which  regulates  the  ordinary  actions  of  the  system, 
and  dominates  over  and  counterbalances  the  usual  physical 
forces  that  rule  the  inorganic  world.  Such  an  idea  strikes 
at  the  root  of  all  application  of  exterior  experiment  to  living 
beings,  and  is  a  relic  of  the  fetich-worshiping  ages  of  nations, 
when  every  breeze  was  the  breath  of  a  demi-god,  and  every 
cloud  a  frown — when  the  crashing  lightning  was  a  bolt  sped 
by  Jove,  and  the  thunder  the  angry  rolling  of  his  car.  It 
is  associated  with  the  time  when  naked  savages  were  praying 
to  the  spirit  of  a  dried  cow's  tail. 

In  these  days  of  the  impersonality  of  force,  men  know 
that  there  is  no  power  which  can  resist  that  fiat  of  Om- 
nipotence, the  natural  laws,  ruling  equally  an  ultra-micro- 
scopic atom  or  a  succession  of  worlds  stretched  throughout 
the  infinity  of  space.  There  is,  therefore,  a  reason  that  phy- 
sicians should  apply  discoveries  of  actions  seen  in  the  outer 
world  to  the  inner  workings  of  the  body ;  and  hence  organic 
chemistry,  the  microscope,  the  spectroscope,  methods  of  phy- 
sical exploration,  electrical  conductions  and  inductions,  the- 
ories of  germ  origin  of  disease,  etc.,  are  applied  to  investiga- 
tion and  cure. 


SOME  QUACKS 


SOME  QUACKS 

N  spite  of  all  moral  condemnation,  one  cannot  avoid 
a  certain  admiration  for  a  bold  and  successful  im- 
postor. Boldness  and  shrewdness  are  captivating 
in  themselves — Becky  Sharp,  though  detestable,  is 
sublime.  Milton  meant  that  we  should  admire  his  Satan, 
Scribe  has  a  comedie  vaudeznlle,  I  remember,  which  appeals 
entirely  to  men's  admiration  for  successful  charlatanism. 
So  well  known  is  this  trait,  that  some  men  in  politics,  as 
Wilkes,  the  English  demagogue  of  the  last  century,  and  cer- 
tain American  politicians  of  the  present  century,  or  there- 
abouts, are  shrewd  enough  to  win  on  their  barefaced  reputa- 
tion for  demagogery.  It  is  one  of  the  dangers  of  free 
government  that  many  people  like  a  trickster,  if  he  is  only 
bold  and  entirely  without  scruple.  To  every  condemnation 
of  his  morals,  men  rejoin  that  he  is  "mighty  smart,"  or,  as 
they  say  in  England  of  a  famous  living  statesman,  "awfully 
clever."  The  mob  likes  the  man  who  goes  to  extremes,  says 
Brougham.  The  showmen  who  frankly  do  business  on  their 
reputation  for  skilful  imposture  are  far  less  blameworthy 
than  those  political^  medical,  and  clerical  humbugs  who 
handle  more  vital  things  than  "Cardiff  giants"  and  "What- 
is-its." 

But  one  cannot  help  being  amused  even  with  these  im- 
postors. A  vulture  is  interesting  from  some  standpoints. 
There  are  books  filled  with  the  exploits  of  quacks ;  but  what 
I  want  to  do  here  is  to  run  a  naturalist's  pin  through  a  few 
smaller  specimens  of  the  humbug  family,  of  the  medical 
genus,  whom  I  have  known. 

The  common  resort  of  quacks  in  the  times  of  a  generation 
or  more  ago  was  Thompsonianism.  I  have  heard  that 
Thompson's  little  book,  containing  all  the  secrets  of  thera- 
peutics, was  sold  for  twenty  dollars,  the  buyer  binding  him- 


i8o  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

self  not  to  communicate  these  mysteries  to  any  other  person. 
As  the  Thompsonians  used  only  vegetable  remedies,  and 
for  the  most  part  simples,  they  were  called  "root-doctors," 
and  from  their  use  of  "steam-sweats,"  by  means  of  boiled 
Indian  corn  packed  about  the  patient,  they  got  the  sobriquet 
at  the  West  of  "corn-doctors,"  but  more  commonly  of 
"steam-doctors."  Any  bold-faced  ignoramus  might  set  up 
for  a  steam-doctor ;  it  was  Gil  Bias's  "universal  dissolvent" 
come  back  again^  for  there  is  nothing  new  even  in  quackery. 
The  "steam-doctors"  sneeringly  dubbed  the  regular  physi- 
cians "calomel-doctors" — a  term  rendered  appropriate  by 
the  excessive  use  of  mercury  fifty  years  ago.  I  think  it  is  O. 
H.  Smith,  in  his  "Sketches,"  who  relates  that  a  certain  ig- 
norant fellow,  in  the  interior  of  Indiana,  bought  a  book  and 
removed  to  a  new  settlement,  where  he  set  up  for  a  "root- 
doctor."  A  friend  who  met  him  inquired  after  his  success. 
He  got  on  very  well,  he  said.  He  thought  "root-doctorin'  a 
good  deal  better  than  calamus-doctorin'.  He'd  had  a  case 
the  other  day  of  a  sick  woman,  and  he  thought  he'd  just 
try  the  calamus-doctor's  plan,  so  he  dug  up  some  calamus 
and  give  it  to  her,  and  she  died." 

A  blacksmith  in  one  of  the  river  counties  of  Indiana  set 
up  for  a  "botanic-physician,"  and  when  I  knew  him  was  very 
rich.  A  steamboat  pilot  in  the  same  county,  with  no  educa- 
tion at  all,  removed  to  Brooklyn,  and  engaged  very  success- 
fully in  cures  by  rubbing.  He  claimed  to  have  learned  all 
his  secrets  by  a  revelation  made  in  a  dream,  and  he  kept  a 
sort  of  hospital,  generally  well  filled  with  rich  fools.  Some 
of  the  theories  which  the  root-doctors  came  to  hold  were 
very  amusing.  I  know  a  minister  of  prominence  in  the 
West,  who  was  once  a  "student"  or  office-boy  for  one  of 
them.  He  relates  that  the  doctor  sent  him  into  the  woods 
to  get  some  of  the  inner  bark  of  the  butternut-tree. 

"Tom,"  said  the  doctor,  as  he  departed,  "I  want  you  to 
scrape  this  bark  downward.  It  is  for  a  cathartic.  Don't 
scrape  it  upward,  or  it  will  be  an  emetic.  And  whatever 
you  do,  Thomas,  don't  you  scrape  it  both  ways.  If  you  do, 
nobody  on  earth  can  tell  how  it  will  act." 


SOME  QUACKS  181 

But  these  were  small  fry.  The  rarest  specimen  of  the 
quack  that  I  have  ever  known  Hved  in  an  important  city  on 
the  upper  Mississippi,  and  practised  curing  by  mesmerism. 
Happily  he  is  dead  now^  though  I  make  no  doubt  that  other 
quacks  have  taken  his  place.  This  Doctor  X.  had  failed  in 
a  very  remarkable  way,  as  some  men  do,  in  commercial 
business,  and  had  set  up  as  a  mesmeric  doctor,  though  I  be- 
lieve he  practised  on  an  "As-you-like-it"  system.  To  the 
scientifically  inclined  patient  he  was  a  mesmerist,  to  the 
pious  he  was  a  man  who  cured  by  the  power  of  faith  ;  and  he 
was  accustomed  to  remark,  with  great  austerity,  that  if  the 
Protestant  ministers  of  the  city  had  as  much  faith  as  he, 
they  could  work  as  wonderful  cures  as  he  did — which,  I 
believe,  was  the  only  strikingly  true  thing  he  ever  said.  To 
spiritualists,  again,  he  was  a  medium.  His  method  of  cure 
was  by  the  laying  on  of  hands.  He  stood  with  his  hands  on 
the  patient's  head  for  about  five  minutes  each  day.  He  not 
only  cured,  but  he  diagnosticated  the  disease  in  the  same  way. 
For  half  the  secret  of  success  in  quackery  lies  in  the  au- 
dacity of  your  pretension.  "Toujours  I'aiidace"  is  the  legend 
of  every  impostor  who  wins.  It  was  better  than  a  play  to 
see  grave  clergymen,  lawyers,  and  other  prominent  citizens 
file  into  the  office  of  a  morning  to  have  the  solemn  old  hum- 
bug put  his  magnetic  paw  upon  their  heads.  Among  his 
patrons  were  prominent  public  men,  and  the  Governor  of 
the  State  himself.  The  Governor  urged  me  to  go  to  him, 
because,  as  he  said,  the  man  talked  most  rationally. 

Meeting  "Doctor"  X.  one  day  in  a  public  library,  I  sought 
to  hear  his  theory  of  healing.  He  expounded  it  almost  in 
these  words : 

"I  put  my  hand  upon  the  patient's  head,  and  bring  the 
sensorium  of  my  brain  into  contact  with  the  sensorium  of 
the  patient's  brain.  Then  I  send  a  subtle  current  of  etherium 
all  over  the  patient's  system,  stimulating  all  his  organs  into 
activity.  Then  I  make  my  examination.  I  do  not  want  the 
patient  to  tell  me  anything  about  his  symptoms — symptoms 
are  apt  to  mislead.  But  I  begin  with  the  upper  lobe  of  the 
brain ;  if  I  find  that  all  right,  I  proceed  to  the  middle  lobe ; 


i82  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

then  the  lower  lobe,  or  cerebellum ;  and  if  I  find  a  coagula- 
tion of  blood  at  the  top  of  the  spinal  cord,  I  know  that  the 
patient  has  epilepsy,  and  so  on." 

A  Jew  by  the  name  of  Quohn  was  my  neighbor.  He  was 
a  merry-hearted  fellow,  in  spite  of  the  intolerable  agony 
of  eighteen  years  of  asthma,  which  a  little  later  caused  his 
death.  He  went  to  see  Doctor  X.,  of  course,  and  the  exer- 
tion of  climbing  the  doctor's  steps  set  him  a-wheezing  like 
the  steam-engine  at  a  blast-furnace.  Placing  his  hand  on 
Mr.  Quohn's  head,  the  wise  doctor  pronounced  the  patient 
to  be  suffering  from  asthma.  This  was  a  remarkable  token 
of  skill,  and  the  patient  suffered  himself  to  come  under  the 
doctor's  hand  for  five  minutes  a  day  during  the  next  five  or 
six  weeks,  at  fifty  cents  each  time.  At  last,  finding  his 
asthma  steadily  growing  worse,  he  gave  over,  laughing  mer- 
rily at  his  own  stupidity. 

"I  t'ink,"  he  said  to  me  one  day,  "t'at  Doctor  X.  has  cot 
a  coot  teal  of  magnetic  power." 

"What  makes  you  think  so?"  I  asked. 

"How  could  he  traw  eighteen  tollars  and  a  half  out  of 
my  pocket  if  he  hadn't?"  he  gasped. 

Whenever  I  speak  or  write  of  any  manifestation  of  super- 
stition or  ignorance  in  the  West,  I  am  sure  to  meet  some 
Eastern  man  who  speaks  deprecatingly  of  Western  barbar- 
ism, as  though  any  one  section  of  the  country  held  a  monop- 
oly of  ignorance  and  gullibility.  Such  a  one  has  only  to  read 
the  advertisements  of  clairvoyants  in  the  New  York  papers 
to  see  how  many  people,  in  what  is  called  "society,"  go  to 
see  seventh  daughters  of  seventh  daughters,  or  wonderful 
astrologers. 

During  the  first  year  that  I  was  in  New  York,  I  was  talk- 
ing one  day  to  a  prominent  journalist.  He  was  speaking 
highly  of  a  clairvoyant  doctor  in  the  West,  to  whom  he  was 
about  to  forward  a  lock  of  hair  of  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
clergymen  in  the  metropolis.  It  seems  that  this  clairvoyant 
physician  could  tell  the  disease  and  prescribe  medicines  by 
means  of  a  lock  of  hair.  My  friend  proceeded  to  mention 
that  the  wife  of  a  certain  New  Englander,  of  world-wide 


SOME  QUACKS  183 

fame,  had  been  ill  a  long  time,  and  that  at  his  suggestion  a 
lock  of  her  hair  had  been  mailed  to  this  great  clairvoyant, 
who  had  complained  that  the  hair  was  not  cut  off  close 
enough  to  the  head.  A  second  lock  of  hair,  cut  closer, 
served  the  purpose,  and  brought  a  correct  diagnosis  and  a 
beneficial  prescription.  When  this  recital  was  ended,  I  broke 
out  into  some  skeptical  ravings  about  the  absurdity  of  all 
this,  finally  saying: 

"Why,  that's  as  bad  as  old  Doctor  X.,  whom  I  used  to 
know  at  ." 

"Doctor  X.  of  ?"  responded  my  friend;  "why, 

that's  the  very  man  !" 

You  see  how  much  more  susceptible  of  deception  the  wild 
West  is  than  New  York  and  New  England.  The  excellent 
New  England  lady  has  since  died,  in  spite  of  X.'s  prescrip- 
tions, and  the  eminent  metropolitan  clergyman  did  not  re- 
cover from  his  disease  by  means  of  X.'s  prescription.  I 
cannot  but  admire  X.'s  ingenuity,  however.  At  home  he 
despised  physic,  and  wrought  all  by  his  omnipotent  hand. 
For  the  absent  he  prescribed  as  above.  By  these  ingenious 
and  thrifty  acts  he  acquired  a  competence,  and  became  a 
connoisseur  in  fruit-growing  at  his  country  place. 

There  is  flourishing  just  now  a  rich  and  famous  quack, 
who  lives  near  New  York,  but  who  finds  much  of  his  har- 
vest among  the  intellectual  people  of  Boston.  A  gentleman 
who  had  been  worried  by  his  friends  and  family  to  submit 
a  lock  of  his  sick  child's  hair  to  this  man  at  length  consented, 
and,  taking  a  pair  of  shears  to  sever  a  ringlet  from  her  head, 
he  observed  that  her  hair  was  very  similar  in  color  to  that 
of  a  pet  dog  lying  on  the  pillow  beside  her.  So  he  snipped 
off  one  of  the  poodle's  curls  and  sent  it.  It  is  needless  to 
add  that  the  child's  disease  was  very  correctly  described  by 
return  of  mail ! 

Of  course,  quacks  always  take  refuge  in  something  that 
has  an  air  of  mystery.  Why  a  clairvoyant  should  know  any 
more  than  anybody  else,  or  why  an  Indian  remedy  or  an 
Egyptian  doctor  should  be  valuable,  it  would  puzzle  one  to 
tell.    You  have  only  to  peruse  the  board-fences  and  dead- 


l84        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

walls  to  understand  how  much  quackery  depends  on  this 
love  of  far-fetchedness. 

When  I  was  but  a  little  boy,  my  brother  and  myself  dis- 
covered that  the  lime  made  by  burning  the  shells  of  some 
species  of  clams  or  mussels  which  are  very  abundant  on  the 
Ohio  served  excellently  to  polish  silverware^better,  per- 
haps, than  the  articles  now  sold  for  the  purpose.  What  boy 
has  not  made  his  wonderful  invention  at  some  period  of 
his  life?  We  were  intent  on  making  our  fortunes.  We 
manufactured  ugly  pasteboard  boxes,  and  put  up  a  quantity 
of  shell  lime.  We  could  not  peddle  it  ourselves  without 
sacrificing  the  dignity  of  the  family.  There  was,  however,  a 
venerable  junkman,  with  a  hand-cart,  who  went  about  the 
streets  of  New  Albany  in  that  time.  On  application  to 
him  he  consented,  after  trying  it,  to  sell  it  for  us  on  com- 
mission. We  delivered  the  whole  stock  at  once.  The  junk- 
man wanted  a  name  for  it.  By  dint  of  looking  steadfastly 
at  the  Venetian  blinds  in  the  window,  one  of  us  originated 
the  name  of  "Venetian  Polish."  But  the  junk-dealer  said 
that  would  not  do.  People  liked  French  things.  So  he  pro- 
ceeded to  dub  it  "French  Venetian  Polish,"  and,  without 
listening  to  any  remonstrances  on  our  part,  he  marched  off, 
sold  the  article,  but  forgot  to  make  any  return  to  the  manu- 
facturers. I  often  think  that  many  patent  nostrums  are 
named  about  as  intelligently  as  our  poor  "French  Venetian 
PoUsh." 

I  have  heard,  or  read,  that  there  was  in  one  of  the  larger 
Western  towns  a  man  who  called  himself  an  "Indian  doc- 
tor," who  was  all  the  vogue,  to  the  great  chagrin  of  the 
regular  physicians.  At  last  he  had  an  amputation  to  per- 
form, and  the  consulting  physicians,  regardless  of  the  pa- 
tient, stood  off  to  see  the  ignorant  man  make  a  fool  of  him- 
self. To  their  surprise,  he  performed  the  operation  well. 
One  of  the  doctors  took  him  aside  and  inquired  how  he 
knew  so  much  of  surgery,  upon  which  the  quack  showed  a 
diploma,  saying  that  he  knew  he  should  starve  if  he  did  not 
pretend  to  quackery.  Upon  this  being  reported  to  the  others, 
one  of  them  said :    "We'll  ruin  him  now,"  which  they  did  by 


SOME  QUACKS  185 

reporting  everywhere  that  he  was  a  regularly  educated  phy- 
sician. 

Indian  medicine  among  the  Indians  themselves  is,  for  the 
most  part,  blind  superstition  and  arrant  imposture.  The 
savages  can  dress  wounds  fairly  well,  and  they  may  know 
some  simples  that  are  good,  but  not  half  so  good  as  the 
remedies  in  use  among  civilized  people.  Their  chief  reliance 
for  a  cure  seems  to  be  the  keeping  up  of  an  unearthly  howl- 
ing over  the  bed  of  the  patient,  by  way  of  driving  off  the 
evil  spirits.  It  is  only  the  state  of  semi-savage  ignorance  of 
scientific  matters  in  which  the  prevalent  methods  of  educa- 
tion leave  our  people  that  makes  them  so  eager  to  accept 
Indian,  Persian,  Egyptian,  or  American  quackery  in  prefer- 
ence to  scientific  treatment. 

One  of  my  schoolmates  was  hard  of  hearing.  In  his 
childhood,  the  physicians  having  failed  to  relieve  the  deaf- 
ness which  came  as  one  of  the  sequels  of  a  fever,  the  family 
resolved  to  consult  a  famous  "Egyptian  doctor"  in  Cincin- 
nati, and  a  relative  of  mine  was  the  messenger  for  this  pur- 
pose. This  Egyptian  doctor,  who  was  only  a  shrewd  negro, 
perhaps  with  accomplices,  did  not  ask  for  a  lock  of  hair, 
but  wished  to  have  the  middle  finger  of  the  sufferer  dipped 
into  water  in  a  certain  way,  so  that  only  the  middle  of  the 
finger  should  be  wetted.  The  water  was  then  bottled  and 
taken  to  him.  In  the  present  case  he  complained  that  others 
had  put  their  hands  into  the  water,  and  it  was  necessary  to 
make  a  second  trial ;  by  the  time  this  was  done,  the  doctor 
had  secured  information  enough  to  startle  the  family,  and 
greatly  increase  his  reputation  for  the  possession  of  the 
black  art. 

I  suppose  one  must  attribute  to  the  singular  inefficiency 
of  our  school  systems  the  strange  tendency  to  superstition 
in  medicine,  as  well  as  much  narrow  prejudice  in  other 
matters,  so  prevalent  among  the  mass  of  our  people.  I  have 
known  families  who  regularly  employed  two  physicians  in 
their  families — an  allopathic  physician  for  the  adults  and  a 
homeopathist  for  the  children — on  the  plan,  I  suppose,  of 
giving  to  each  one  pills  according  to  his  size.    I  have  known 


i86  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

people,  otherwise  sane,  to  stand  an  asthmatic  boy  up  against 
a  growing  tree,  bore  a  hole  at  his  exact  height,  and  insert  a 
lock  of  his  hair,  driving  in  a  peg  after  it,  and  then  cutting 
the  hair  from  his  head.  The  superstition  is  that  when  the 
boy  grows  above  that  lock  of  hair,  his  asthma  will  vanish. 
Among  more  ignorant  people,  the  blood  of  a  black  hen  is 
sometimes  used  for  erysipelas,  and  the  oil  of  a  black  dog  is 
applied  for  rheumatism^  and,  to  my  knowledge,  astonishing 
cures  of  consumption  have  been  wrought  by  administering 
internally  the  oil  from  a  large  black  dog.  Pills  made  of 
spider-webs  cure  the  ague,  and  so  also  will  caterpillars  worn 
around  the  neck  as  beads.  The  two  last  are  similia  similibus 
— the  shuddering  produced  by  the  remedy  cures  the  shaking 
of  the  ague,  I  suppose.  Something  of  the  same  notion  is 
found,  no  doubt,  in  the  application  of  the  flesh  of  the  rattle- 
snake to  cure  its  own  bite.  There  is,  possibly,  a  real  benefit 
from  this,  the  tissues  of  the  newly  killed  snake  absorbing 
some  of  the  poison  that  would  otherwise  be  distributed 
through  the  human  system. 

One  of  the  rarest  quacks  I  have  ever  known  was  a  man 
whose  mind  was  positively  feeble  in  everything  but  cunning. 
He  was  greatly  sought  after  as  a  doctor  for  children  by  peo- 
ple who  would  not  trust  him  to  treat  grown  folks — the 
measure  of  his  intellect  being  just  suited  to  the  size  of  a 
child.    He  was  always  boasting  of  his  success. 

"How  are  you,  Doctor  W.  ?"  I  said,  one  day. 

"I  am  well,  and  my  patients  are  doing  well,  too,"  he 
answered  characteristically. 

He  took  an  active  part  in  politics  and  secret  societies,  for 
the  sake  of  talking  about  his  patients,  until  he  became  a  by- 
word. Once  in  a  political  meeting  he  was  appointed  on  a 
committee.    Instantly  he  was  on  his  feet. 

"Mr.  Chairman,"  he  drawled,  "I  hope  you'll  excuse  me. 
I  must  leave  the  house  at  once  to  see  a  patient." 

"Mr.  Chairman,"  cried  another,  "I  hope  you  will  excuse 
Doctor  W.  and  let  him  go  to  see  this  patient.  This  is  the 
first  patient  he  has  had  in  a  month." 

I  have  had  this  man  assure  me  that  a  patient  would  get 


SOME  QUACKS  187 

well,  when  he  was  actually  and  visibly  in  the  very  article 
of  death  from  consumption  at  the  moment,  and  was  dead 
in  an  hour  afterward.  The  ignorant  quack  probably  believed 
what  he  said.  He  was  only  a  children's  doctor,  and  could  not 
be  expected  to  know  whether  a  grown  man  was  dying  or 
only  getting  well.  In  i860  I  met,  in  Manitoba,  a  great 
medicine-chief  of  the  Crees,  who  was  called  in  French 
"Grandes  Oreilles,"  a  name  that  easily  translates  itself  into 
English  as  "Long  Ears."  But  the  medicine-man  is  not  such 
a  donkey  as  his  victim.  A  year  or  two  later^  a  chief's  son 
at  Manitoba  was  very  low  of  pneumonia.  All  the  incanta- 
tions and  dervish  howling  and  dancing  of  the  medicine-men 
could  not  vanquish  the  disease.  So  a  white  physician  was 
called  in.  He  used  a  stethoscope  to  examine  the  lungs, 
and  the  savages  watched  him  in  mute  astonishment  as  he 
handled  the  flexible  rubber  tube  with  silver  end-pieces.  The 
Indian  got  well,  and  Grandes  Oreilles  plaintively  confided  to 
a  white  man  of  his  acquaintance  that  he  himself  could  have 
cured  the  young  man  easily  if  he  had  had  that  little  silver 
thing  which  the  white  doctor  used  to  make  him  well. 

Some  years  ago,  a  fellow  lay  dead  drunk  in  one  of  the 
streets  of  New  York.  Some  rollicking  medical  student 
pushed  through  the  crowd  that  surrounded  the  drunken  man, 
and  declared  immediately  that  the  man  was  not  drunk,  but 
suffering  from  a  bad  attack  of  strabismus,  and  was  likely  to 
die.  This  horrified  the  crowd,  and  each  man  repeated  the 
story  to  his  neighbor,  with  every  pretense  of  knowing  all 
about  the  dreadful  disease.  At  last  one  of  the  medical  pro- 
fessors came  to  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd  and  made  inquiry, 
upon  which  he  learned  that  there  was  a  man  dying  of  stra- 
bismus. Just  this  trick  of  imposing  on  the  imagination  by 
words  not  understood,  the  makers  of  medicine  almanacs  play 
from  year  to  year. 

And  not  they  alone.  How  many  physicians  who  should 
know  better  do  the  same  thing,  by  affecting  a  learned  jargon 
quite  incomprehensible  to  com.mon  folks.  And  how  many 
have  made  reputations  to  which  they  are  not  entitled,  by 
adroitly  pretending  that  their  cases  were  very  bad  ones. 


i88  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

"How  little  you  know  of  medicine!"  cries  the  wife  of  a 
ne'er-do-well  doctor,  in  a  French  play ;  "when  anybody  calls 
you,  you  say,  *Oh,  that's  a  matter  of  a  few  days,'  instead  of 
telling  him  that  he  is  very  sick." 

That  quacks  often  work  cures  is  not  wonderful  if  we  con- 
sider how  many  diseases  originate  or  have  to  do  with  mor- 
bid nervous  conditions.  The  violent  mental  shock  given  to 
a  pilgrim  at  Lourdes  or  Knock,  by  the  excitement  of  ex- 
pectation and  of  sympathy,  might  well  cure  many  cripples 
from  paralysis  or  rheumatism.  There  was  a  miracle-worker 
in  New  York,  a  few  years  ago,  who  cured  some  most  ob- 
stinate cases  of  paralysis  by  "faith."  A  lady  told  me  that 
she  sat  in  the  chair  of  an  eminent  surgeon-dentist  when 
his  wife  returned  from  visiting  this  wonder-worker,  quite 
recovered  from  a  paralysis  of  nine  years'  duration.  She  was 
able  to  walk  from  the  carriage  alone,  and  the  emotion  of 
the  poor  lady  and  her  husband  was  very  touching.  I  be- 
lieve, however,  that  the  relief  was  only  temporary,  and  I 
doubt  not  it  is  usually  so. 

In  all  such  cases,  the  will  and  imagination  of  the  patient 
are  violently  wrought  upon,  and  will  and  imagination  are 
great  therapeutic  agents.  It  was  through  such  excitement 
of  the  patient's  feelings,  no  doubt,  that  the  old  kings  of 
England  cured  so  many  thousands  by  touching  them.  "God 
heal  you  and  give  you  a  better  mind,"  said  the  unbelieving 
William  III.  to  one  poor  soul  who  came  to  be  touched. 
There  is  grotesque  Irony  in  the  fact  that  Charles  II.  is  said 
to  have  worked  more  cures  than  any  other  person  in  history. 

As  the  world  comes  out  of  its  babyhood,  and  men  under- 
stand more  and  more  how  inflexible  are  the  laws  of  life,  the 
quack  and  miracle-monger  will  find  their  occupation  gone. 
Nothing  is  so  much  needed  as  a  good,  healthy  skepticism. 
For  it  is  better  to  suffer  rheumatism,  fevers,  and  palsies  of 
the  body  than  to  endure  the  paralysis  of  the  understanding 
which  is  the  inevitable  result  of  credulity  and  superstition. 


THE  LEARNED  APOTHECARY 

BY 

PORTER  DAVIES,  M.  D. 


THE  LEARNED  APOTHECARY 

N  an  act  of  Parliament  made  in  1815,  entitled,  "An 
act  for  the  better  regulating  the  practise  of  apothe- 
caries," there  is  a  very  salutary  clause,  which  en- 
acts :  "That  from  and  after  the  first  day  of  August, 
181 5,  it  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  person  (except  persons 
already  in  practise  as  such),  to  practise  as  an  apothecary 
in  any  part  of  England  or  Wales,  unless  he  or  they  shall 
have  been  examined  by  the  court  of  examiners  of  the  apothe- 
caries' company,  and  shall  have  received  a  certificate  as 
such." 

The  first  conviction  under  this  act  took  place  at  the  Staf- 
fordshire Lent  assizes  of  1819,  before  Sir  William  Garrow, 
when  the  apothecaries'  company  brought  an  action  against 
a  man  of  the  name  of  Warburton,  for  having  practised  as 
an  apothecary  without  being  duly  qualified.  The  defendant, 
it  appeared,  was  the  son  of  a  man  who,  in  the  early  part 
of  his  life  had  been  a  gardener,  but  afterwards  set  up  as  a 
cow  leech.  The  facts  were  stated  by  Mr.  Dauncey  for  the 
prosecution,  and  supported  by  evidence. 

Mr.  Jervis,  for  the  defense,  called  the  father  of  the  de- 
fendant, Arnold  Warburton,  to  prove  that  he  had  practised 
as  an  apothecary  before  the  passing  of  the  act. 

Cross-examined  by  Mr.  Dauncey. 

Mr.  Dauncey — Mr.  Warburton,  have  you  always  been  a 
surgeon  ? 

Witness  appealed  to  the  judge,  whether  this  was  a  proper 
answer. 

The  Judge — I  have  not  heard  any  answer ;  Mr.  Dauncey 
has  put  a  question. 

Witness — Must  I  answer  it? 

Judge — Yes ;  why  do  you  object  ? 


192  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Witness — I  don't  think  it  a  proper  answer. 

Judge — I  presume  you  mean  question,  and  I  differ  from 
you  in  opinion. 

The  witness  not  answering,  Mr.  Dauncey  repeated — Have 
you  always  been  a  surgeon  ? 

Witness — I  am  a  surjent. 

Mr.  Dauncey — Can  you  spell  the  word  you  have  men- 
tioned ? 

Witness — My  lord,  is  that  a  fair  answer? 

Judge — I  think  it  a  fair  question. 

Witness — S-y-u-r-g-u-n-t. 

Mr.  Dauncey — I  am  unfortunately  hard  of  hearing ;  have 
the  goodness  to  repeat  what  you  have  said,  sir. 

Witness — S-u-r-g-e-n-d. 

Mr.  Dauncey — S — ,  what  did  you  say  next  to  S,  sir? 

Witness — S-y-u-r-g-u-n-d. 

Mr.  Dauncey — Very  well,  sir;  I  am  perfectly  satisfied. 

Judge — ^As  I  take  down  the  word  sur — ,  please  to  favor 
me  with  it  once  more. 

Witness — S-u-r-g-u-n-t. 

Judge — How,  sir? 

Witness — S-e-r-g-u-n-d. 

Judge — Very  well. 

Mr.  Dauncey — Sir,  have  you  always  been  what  you  say? 
that  word,  I  mean,  which  you  have  just  spelt?  {A  long 
pause.) 

Mr.  Dauncey — I  am  afraid,  sir,  you  do  not  often  take  so 
much  time  to  study  the  cases  which  come  before  you,  as  you 
do  to  answer  my  question. 

Witness — I  do  not,  sir. 

Mr.  Dauncey — Well,  sir,  will  you  please  to  answer  it? 
(A  long  pause,  hut  no  reply.)  Well,  what  were  you  orig- 
inally, Doctor  Warburton? 

Witness — S-y-u-r-g-e-n-d, 

Mr.  Dauncey — When  you  first  took  to  business,  what  was 
that  business?    Were  you  a  gardener,  Doctor  Warburton? 

Witness — S-u-r-g-e-n-t 

Mr.  Dauncey — t  do  not  ask  you  to  spell  that  word  again ; 


THE  LEARNED  APOTHECARY         193 

but  before  you  were  of  that  profession,  what  were  you? 

Witness — S-e-r-g-u-n-t. 

Mr.  Dcmncey — My  lord,  I  fear  I  have  thrown  a  spell  over 
this  poor  man,  which  he  cannot  get  rid  of. 

Judge — Attend,  witness ;  you  are  now  to  answer  the  ques- 
tions put  to  you.    You  need  not  spell  that  word  any  more. 

Mr.  Dauncey. — When  were  you  a  gardener? 

Witness — I  never  was. 

The  witness  then  stated  that  he  never  employed  himself 
in  gardening ;  he  first  was  a  farmer,  his  father  was  a  farmer, 
he  (witness)  ceased  to  be  a  farmer  fifteen  or  sixteen  years 
ago ;  he  ceased  "because  he  had  been  learnt  that  business 
which  he  now  is."  "Whom  did  you  learn  it  of?"  "Is  that  a 
proper  question,  my  lord?"  "I  see  no  objection  to  it." 
"Then  I  will  answer  it;  I  learnt  of  Doctor  Hulme,  my 
brother-in-law ;  he  practised  the  same  as  the  Whitworth  doc- 
tors, and  they  were  regular  physicians." 

Mr.  Dauncey — Where  did  they  take  their  degrees? 

Witness — I  don't  believe  they  ever  took  a  degree. 

"Then  they  were  regular  physicians?"  "No!  I  believe 
they  were  not;  they  were  only  doctors."  "Only  doctors! 
Were  they  doctors  in  law,  physic,  or  divinity  ?"  "They  doc- 
tored cows,  and  other  things,  and  humans  as  well." 
"Doubtless,  as  ivell;  and  you,  I  doubt  not,  have  doctored 
brute  animals  as  well  as  human  creatures?"     "I  have." 

Said  the  Judge  to  Witness,  "Did  you  ever  make  up  any 
medicine  by  the  prescription  of  a  physician?"  "I  never 
did."  "Do  you  understand  the  characters  they  use  for 
ounces,  scruples,  and  drachms?"  "I  do  not."  "Then  you 
cannot  make  up  their  prescriptions  from  reading  them?" 
"I  cannot ;  but  I  can  make  up  as  good  medicines  in  my  way, 
as  they  can  in  theirs."  "What  proportion  does  an  ounce 
bear  to  a  pound?"  {A  pause.)  "There  are  sixteen  ounces 
to  the  pound ;  but  we  do  not  go  by  any  regular  weight ;  we 
mix  ours  by  the  hand."  "Do  you  bleed  ?"  "Yes."  "With  a 
fleam  or  with  a  lancet?"  "With  a  lancet."  "Do  you  bleed 
from  the  vein  or  from  the  artery?"  "From  the  vein." 
"There  is  an  artery  somewhere  about  the  temples;  what  is 


194  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

the  name  of  that  artery?"  "I  do  not  pretend  to  have  so 
much  learning  as  some  have."  "Can  you  tell  me  the  name 
of  that  artery  ?"  "I  do  not  know  which  you  mean."  "Sup- 
pose, then,  I  was  to  direct  you  to  bleed  my  servant  or  my 
horse  (which  God  forbid)  in  a  vein,  say  for  instance  in 
the  jugular  vein,  where  should  you  bleed  him?"  "In  the 
neck,  to  be  sure." 

Judge — I  would  take  everything  as  favorably  for  the 
young  man  as  I  properly  can ;  but  here  we  have  ignorance 
greater,  perhaps,  than  ever  appeared  in  a  court  before,  as 
the  only  medium  of  education  which  this  defendant  can  pos- 
sibly have  received  in  his  profession. 

Several  other  witnesses  were  examined  for  the  defense. 

Judge  Garrow,  in  summing  up,  observed  that  this  was  a 
question  of  considerable  importance  to  the  defendant  in  the 
cause,  on  whose  future  prospects  it  must  necessarily  have 
great  influence ;  and  it  was  of  the  last  importance  to  the 
public.  The  learned  judge  commented  strongly  on  the  ig- 
norance of  the  defendant's  father,  a  man  more  ignorant  than 
the  most  ignorant  that  they  had  ever  before  heard  examined 
in  any  court.  Was  this  man  qualified  for  professing  any 
science,  particularly  one  in  which  the  health  and  even  the 
lives  of  the  public  were  involved?  Yet  through  such  an 
impure  medium  alone  had  the  defendant  received  his  knowl- 
edge of  this  profession.  There  was  not  the  least  proof  of 
the  defendant's  having  for  a  single  minute  been  in  a  situa- 
tion to  receive  instruction  from  any  one  really  acting  as  an 
apothecary.  If  the  ]\.\Ty  thought  that  the  defendant  had 
acted  as  an  apothecary  before  the  time  mentioned  in  the 
act,  they  would  find  a  verdict  for  him ;  but  otherwise,  they 
would  find  for  the  plaintiflFs  in  one  penalty.  The  jury  almost 
instantly  returned  a  verdict  for  the  plaintiflfs. 


OLD  ENGLISH 
LITERATURE  AND  MEDICINE 


BY 

I.  ARTHUR  KING 


OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  AND  MEDICINE 


m 


N  the  beautiful  fiction  of  the  Greeks,  ^sculapius, 
the  tutelary  god  of  medicine,  was  the  son  of  Apol- 
lo, the  tutelary  god  of  poetry  and  culture,  and  as 
far  back  as  the  memory  of  man  can  travel  have 
the  two  deities  walked,  with  Mercy  in  their  train,  their 
gracious  way  together.  Cruel  and  capricious  is  our  sov- 
ereign mistress  Fortune,  harsh  and  very  arbitrary  it  would 
seem  are  the  other  divinities  that  shape  our  ends,  but  these 
two  beneficent  powers  have  never  failed  to  bless  and  shelter 
us.  Between  the  forces  that  envy  and  dissolve — ever  mili- 
tant against  our  peace  and  joy — have  Apollo  and  his  son 
stood  before  us  in  the  gap.  One  welcomed  us  into  the  world, 
and  the  other  makes  the  world  lovely  to  us,  wrapping  us 
in  his  glory  and  life  and  light,  while  he  may.  But  when  we 
wax  faint  and  weary,  as  we  must,  then  is  Apollo's  true  son  at 
our  side  soothing,  encouraging,  sympathizing;  and  even 
when  the  Fates  have  worked  their  wills  upon  the  shattered 
frame,  and  we  are  passing  beyond  the  reach  of  healing  hands 
down  the  dark  lonely  road,  he  removes  what  obstacles  he 
can,  and  smooths,  loyal  to  the  last,  the  stormy  passage  to 
the  grave.  Nor  have  the  servants  of  these  kindred  deities 
been  unmindful  of  the  ties  which  connect  them,  and  the  rela- 
tion between  Medicine  and  Literature  forms  one  of  the  most 
interesting  episodes  in  the  history  of  Letters.  They  are  not 
perhaps  so  intimately  related  now  as  they  once  were.  We 
have  many  men  distinguished,  both  in  Medicine  and  Sur- 
gery, but  we  shall  not  be  guilty  of  disrespect  to  the  faculty 
if  we  say  that  very  few  manage  to  temper  the  severer  pur- 
suits of  science  with  the  graceful  accomplishments  of  the 
scholar.  In  an  age  like  the  present,  when  there  is  so  much 
technical  knowledge  to  be  mastered,  and  when  it  must  be 
difficult  for  a  hard-worked  practitioner  to  keep  pace  with 


198  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

the  ever-increasing  discoveries  which  are  every  day  throwing 
light  on  his  own  pursuits,  it  can  hardly  be  expected  that  he 
should  find  time  to  sacrifice  in  any  way  to  the  Muses.  Still, 
considering  how  closely  associated  the  medical  profession 
has  been  with  literature,  as  well  by  its  original  contributions 
as  by  its  affectionate  intercourse  with  men  of  genius,  one 
cannot  help  feeling  a  sort  of  regret  at  this  compulsory  es- 
trangement, and  indulging  a  hope  that  some  day  or  other  the 
two  pursuits  may  resume  their  old  intimacy.  And  now, 
reader,  with  your  leave,  we  will  devote  a  few  pages  to  the 
Literature  of  Physic,  and  recall  the  names  of  some  of  those 
who  divided  their  impartial  sacrifices  between  Delos  and 
Epidaurus. 

Porson  used  to  say  that  there  was  no  better  reading  than 
the  works  of  the  Greek  physicians ;  and  if  he  would  have  con- 
sented to  exclude  Galen  and  Paulus  yEgineta,  we  should  be 
disposed  to  cordially  agree  with  him.  Hippocrates  and  Are- 
taeus  may  be  perused  and  reperused  with  delight  by  any  one 
who  has  any  interest  in  morbid  pathology  and  its  delineation. 
The  first,  who  was  a  contemporary  of  Pericles,  and  who 
flourished  therefore  when  style  and  literary  skill  had  reached 
their  climax  of  perfection,  has  left  a  large  mass  of  writings 
behind  him.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  discriminate  between 
his  spurious  and  genuine  offspring,  it  is  true,  and  he  has 
doubtless  been  made  responsible  for  much  that  he  never 
wrote.  But  the  "Aphorisms"  are  certainly  his,  and  if  they 
contain  much  that  will  amuse,  they  contain  much  useful 
instruction.  There  is  nothing  sounder  or  weightier  in  all 
literature  than  the  first :  "Life  is  short,  and  the  art  is  long, 
the  occasion  fleeting,  experience  fallacious,  and  judgment 
difficult.  The  physician  must  not  only  be  prepared  to  do 
what  is  right  himself,  but  also  to  make  the  patient,  the  at- 
tendants and  externals  co-operate."  His  treatise  "On  the 
Prognostics,"  a  masterpiece  of  minute  and  vigorous  descrip- 
tive power,  contains  a  passage  which  recalls  with  sad  exact- 
ness a  scene  witnessed  by  too  many  of  us.  "When  in  acute 
fevers,  pneumonia,  phrenitis,  or  headache,  the  hands  are 
waved  before  the  face,  hunting  through  empty  space,  as  if 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  199 

gathering  bits  of  straw,  picking  the  nap  from  the  coverlet, 
or  tearing  chaff  from  the  wall,  all  such  symptoms  are  bad 
and  deadly."  A  keen,  curious,  and  close  observer ;  a  shrewd, 
sagacious,  and  practical  man ;  a  thoughtful  and  philosophic 
student  of  human  nature ;  a  master  of  terse  and  lucid  speech 
was  this,  the  father  of  medicine.  If  he  is  to  be  numbered 
among  the  ornaments  of  his  profession,  he  merits  a  place 
among  the  ornaments  of  prose  literature.  Aretaeus,  too,  is 
another  medical  writer  whose  literary  excellence  takes  him 
out  of  the  narrower  sphere  of  a  merely  technical  exponent 
of  his  art.  This  master  of  graphic  composition  flourished 
in  the  second  century.  He  wrote,  like  Hippocrates,  in 
Ionic  Greek.  He  was  evidently  a  man  who  combined  as 
thorough  a  knowledge  of  his  profession  as  was  then  pos- 
sible, with  a  liberal  love  for  poetry  and  the  belles-lettres.  A 
humane  and  tender-hearted  man,  he  often  pauses  to  lament 
the  helplessness  of  the  surgeon  when  confronted  with  some 
forms  of  suffering,  and  to  express  his  sympathy  with  the 
agonies  he  is  unable  to  relieve.  As  a  delineator  of  disease 
he  has  never  been  equaled,  except  perhaps  by  Sydenham, 
and  his  account  of  tetanus  (Acute  Diseases,  Book  I.),  of 
elephantiasis  (Chronic  Diseases,  Book  II.),  and  of  phthisis 
(Chronic  Diseases,  Book  I.)  rank  among  the  miracles  of 
verbal  delineation.  They  are  not  merely  triumphs  of  techni" 
cal  diagnosis ;  they  are  pictures  which  haunt  the  imagination 
like  a  nightmare ;  they  can  never  be  forgotten.  With  the 
slow  and  painful  elaboration  of  Balzac,  Aretseus  has  all  his 
potency  in  general  effect ;  he  not  only  brings  the  sufferer  be- 
fore our  eyes,  but  he  makes  us  feel  and  hear  and  almost  share 
his  tortures — his  despair — his  degradation — every  detail  of 
them.  We  close  his  book  with  horror  and  boundless  admira- 
tion. As  it  is  no  part  of  this  paper  to  deal  with  the  history 
of  medicine,  we  shall  merely  say  of  the  illustrious  Cornelius 
Celsus,  that  in  purity  and  elegance  of  style  he  need  fear  no 
comparison  with  any  of  his  contemporaries,  though  Livy  and 
Nepos  were  probably  among  them.  To  Asclepiades,  whose 
charms  as  a  man  and  whose  eloquence  as  a  writer  have  been 
celebrated  by  Cicero,  we  can  only  allude.    Of  the  writings 


200  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

of  Antonius  Musa,  the  physician  of  Augustus,  Maecenas, 
Virgil,  and  Horace,  nothing  has  come  down  to  us,  but  as  long 
as  Time  shall  be  will  his  name  belong  to  literature.  For  he, 
it  was  well  known,  was  described  by  the  grateful  Virgil,  in 
the  twelfth  book  of  the  yEneid,  under  the  name  of  lapis. 
Aetius,  Oribasius,  Alexander  Trallianus,  and  others  over 
whom  we  may  not  linger  will  bring  us  to  times  compara- 
tively modern. 

First  among  the  moderns  will  stand  the  accomplished  and 
versatile  Jerome  Fracastoro.  Born  in  1483,  he  was  preserved 
to  the  world  by  a  miracle,  for  when  he  was  still  an  infant  his 
mother  was  struck  dead  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  while  he, 
nestling  in  her  bosom,  escaped  unscathed.  His  Latin  poetry 
was  the  glory  of  an  age  which  could  boast  of  the  composition 
of  Politian  and  Bembo,  and  to  the  sedulous  and  successful 
cultivation  of  the  fine  arts  he  added  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  astronomy  and  mathematics,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  was  the  most  eminent  physician  in  Italy.  For 
many  years  statues  of  him  towered  up  in  the  public  squares 
of  Padua  and  Verona,  "that  they  might  serve  as  a  continual 
memento  of  him,  and  as  an  incentive  to  the  pursuit  of  lit- 
erary eminence."  Nor  must  we  pass  by  Jerome  Cardan,  the 
daring  enthusiast  "who  cast  the  horoscope  of  our  Saviour, 
and  subjected  Him  to  the  stars,  to  whom  all  stars  are  sub- 
ject." In  his  restless  and  indefatigable  life  there  was  scarce- 
ly a  department  of  human  knowledge  into  which  he  did  not 
force  himself.  He  was,  he  says,  born  to  release  the  world 
from  the  manifold  errors  under  which  it  groaned,  and  ten 
folio  volumes  testify  his  energy  and  ambition.  The  labors 
of  fanatics  are  heavily  discounted  by  time,  but  mathematics 
will  forever  be  Cardan's  debtor.  Physical  science  will  thank 
him  for  removing,  if  he  did  not  correct,  many  errors,  and 
the  student  of  human  nature  must  be  sincerely  grateful  for 
the  most  curious  and  extraordinary  autobiography  in  ex- 
istence. In  Julius  Caesar  Scaliger  medicine  may  boast  one  of 
its  brightest  scholastic  ornaments,  though,  curiously  enough, 
he  began  the  study  of  neither  medicine  nor  Greek  till  he  was 
forty.    Crudity  and  vigor  characterize  both  the  man  and  his 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  201 

writings,  as  his  son's  account  of  him  and  his  own  "Poetics" 
amply  prove ;  but  the  whole  history  of  letters  has  no  such 
portentous  phenomenon  to  show  as  the  catalogue  of  the 
works  produced  by  this  man  between  the  age  of  forty — 
when,  racked  with  gout,  he  began  the  Greek  alphabet — and 
seventy-four,  when  he  succumbed  to  his  cruel  foe.  Five 
years  before  him  died  another  physician,  the  immortal  Fran- 
cois Rabelais.  Rabelais's  translations  from  Hippocrates  and 
Galen  have  long  sunk  below  soundings.  He  wrote  them  to 
get  a  practise  which  never  came.  One  is  not  altogether  sur- 
prised at  his  contemporaries'  hesitating  about  entrusting 
their  lives  to  the  actual  or  potential  author  of  "The  Lives, 
Heroic  Deeds,  and  Sayings  of  Gargantua  and  Pantagruel." 
He  was  never  a  good  hand  at  patching  up  a  farce,  and  was, 
with  all  his  boisterous  merriment,  glad  enough  when  his  own 
was  played  out.  Light  lie  the  earth  on  Francois  Rabelais, 
for  light  and  merry  has  he  made  her  children ! 

Crossing  over  to  England,  we  are  confronted  with  another 
son  of  ^sculapius,  whose  name  can  never  be  mentioned 
without  pride  by  his  countrymen — Dr.  Thomas  Linacre,  the 
pupil  of  Politian  and  Chalcondylas,  the  friend  of  Erasmus, 
More,  and  Colet,  the  first  teacher  of  Greek  at  Oxford,  the 
initiator  of  the  Renaissance  in  England.  His  enlightened 
and  active  mind  seems  to  have  traversed  the  whole  range  of 
human  learning.  He  gave  us  our  first  correct  version  from 
Aristotle  and  Galen,  he  busied  himself  with  divinity  and 
philology,  he  translated  Proclus  on  the  Sphere,  and  in  pure 
and  perspicuous  Latinity  he  treated  of  medicine  and  physi- 
cal science  in  works  which  are  still  consulted  by  the  curious. 
His  amiable  temper,  his  tmostentatious  charities,  and  his 
generous  philanthropy  have  elicited  glowing  eulogies  from 
more  than  one  of  his  illustrious  contemporaries.  His  tomb 
may  still  be  seen  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  erected  by  another 
scholar  for  whom  Medicine  need  never  blush — Dr.  John 
Caius.  Contemporary  with  these  great  men  was  Sir  Thomas 
Elyot,  a  physician  of  whom  Literature  may  be  justly  proud. 
His  "Castle  of  Health"  was  the  first  popular  book  on  Medi- 
cine in  our  language,  his  "Bibliotheca  Eliota"  our  first  good 


/ 

ao2  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

dictionary,  and  his  "Governour,"  a  sort  of  moral  and  ethical 
treatise,  may  still  be  read  with  interest.  The  faculty  were, 
it  seems,  very  angry  with  Elyot  for  divulging  their  Secrets 
and  for  vulgarizing  medicine  by  writing  about  it  in  English. 
To  which  he  manfully  replied  that  it  was  no  more  shame  for 
a  person  of  quality  to  be  the  author  of  a  book  on  the  science 
of  physic  than  it  was  for  King  Henry  VI IL  to  publish  a 
book  on  the  science  of  grammar,  which  he  had  lately  done. 
He  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Sir  Thomas  More^  and  was 
one  of  the  most  accomplished  scholars  in  Europe.  We 
should  like  to  say  a  word  about  Dr.  Thomas  Phair,  the  trans- 
lator of  Virgil,  and  one  of  the  authors  of  "The  Mirrour  for 
Magistrates" ;  about  William  Bulleyn  and  his  "Bulwark  of 
Defence,  &c." ;  about  Dr.  William  Cunningham  and  his 
"Whetstone  of  Wit"  and  "Castle  of  Knowledge" ;  and  about 
Reginald  Scot  and  his  curious  "Discoverie  of  Witchcraft," 
but  space  forbids.  As  we  propose  to  take  the  poets  together, 
we  shall,  for  the  present,  pass  on  to  the  great  name  of 
Thomas  Sydenham.  It  is,  perhaps,  a  little  singular  that, 
with  the  exception  of  Sydenham,  no  English  physician  has 
published  a  work  on  his  own  art  which  is  entitled  to  a  place 
among  classical  compositions,  and  which  may  be  read  with 
interest  by  the  non-professional  student.  Sydenham's  treat- 
ises, however,  like  those  of  Hippocrates  and  Aretseus,  may 
be  perused  with  delight  by  every  intelligent  scholar.  Their 
facile,  copious,  and  masculine  Latinity,  their  graphic  pictures 
of  disease,  the  striking  reflections  which  relieve  the  course  of 
the  technical  narrative,  their  autobiographical  interest,  must 
come  home  to  every  one.  In  him  were  revived  the  literary 
graces  which  make  the  works  of  the  great  Cappadocian  and 
Celsus  so  fascinating  and  delightful  to  the  general  reader. 
With  him,  however,  perished  the  art :  no  other  medical  works 
have  been  prevented  by  their  style  from  being  altogether 
forgotten  by  literature  in  being  superseded  in  science. 

But  if  ever  Apollo  and  the  Muses  cared  for  mortal  bant- 
ling, mild  was  their  glance  on  the  cradle  of  another  future 
physician,  who  first  saw  the  light  in  Cheapside,  about  the 
middle  of  October,  1605,  for  then  came  there  into  a  world, 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  203 

which  was  to  be  so  beautiful  to  him,  Sir  Thomas  Browne. 
How  shall  we  deal  with  him — how  describe  him — ^him,  the 
author  of  the   "Religio  Medici,"  the  "Hydriotaphia,"  the 
"Vulgar  Errors,"  the  "Quincunx,"  the  charming  "Letters"? 
Quaintest  and  best  of  moralists,  truest,  deepest,  sincerest 
of  philosophers,  a   Plato  without  his  sophistry,  a   Seneca 
without  his  tinsel.    Shall  we  call  him,  in  Southey's  measured 
phrase,  "the  greatest  prose  poet  in  this  or  in  any  other  lan- 
guage," or  echo  Lamb's  loving  eulogies,  or  Coleridge's  rap- 
turous praise,  or  Lytton's  eloquent  panegyric?     Shall  we 
enlarge  on  his  boundless  learning,  as  curious  and  recondite 
as  Burton's,  on  his  originality  in  treating  even  commonplaces 
as  rich  and  racy  as  Montaigne's,  on  his  aphorisms  as  piercing 
and  pithy  as  Tacitus's  and  Bacon's,  on  his  majestic  elo- 
quence, soaring  as  high  as  Plato's  or  Jeremy  Taylor's  when 
their  wing  is  strongest  ?    This,  all  this,  will  his  lovers  claim 
for  him,  but  deeper  still  lies  the  subtle  charm  of  his  genius. 
The  man,  says  Goethe,  is  always  greater  than  his  works,  and 
never  did  literary  expression  less  reflect  the  breathing  soul 
than  in  Browne's  style.    Not  a  thought  that  weighs  like  lead 
on  the  solitary  thinker  but  weighed  heavily  on  him,  and 
cruel  were  the  agonies  he  struggled  through ;  he  has  told  us 
all  about  them  in  that  strange  diction  of  his,  with  the  garru- 
lous simplicity  of  a  child,  but  he  conquered,  he  says,  on  his 
knees.    He  might  "count  the  world  not  an  inn^  but  an  hos- 
pital, not  a  place  to  live  but  to  die  in,"  but  he  learnt  to  "re- 
turn to  his  Creator  the  duty  of  a  devout  and  learned  admira- 
tion."   In  the  active  practise  of  his  profession  he  saw,  as  a 
philosopher,  much  of  human  weakness,  as  a  physician  much 
of  human  suffering ;  but  the  duties  of  the  physician  he  tem- 
pered with  the  liberal  sympathies  of  a  Christian  philosopher. 
With  his  hand  on  the  patient's  pulse — they  are   his  own 
words — he  could  not  help  thinking  of  his  soul,  and  "forgot 
his  province."     At  the  age  of  seventy-seven,  leaving  pos- 
terity the  precious  legacy  of  his  writings,  he  ceased  to  be 
mortal,  "ready  to  be  anything  in  the  ecstasy  of  being  ever 
and  as  content  with  six  feet  as  with  the  moles  of  Adrianus." 
We  have  other  names  to  mention,  but  Browne  was  the 


204  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

prince  of  literary  physicians.  In  striking  contrast  to  him 
stands  Bernard  Mandeville,  who  scandalized  the  hypocrites 
of  the  eighteenth  century  by  his  paradoxical  work  entitled 
"The  Fable  of  the  Bees."  He  is  not  read  now  so  much  as 
he  used  to  be,  but  in  nervous  vigor,  irony,  logic,  and  satire 
he  is  not  unworthy  of  comparison  with  his  brother  cynic, 
Swift.  His  opinion  of  his  fellow-creatures  is  not  encourag- 
ing ;  perhaps  his  professional  experiences  furnished  him  with 
the  hint  for  his  great  doctrine,  that  private  vices  are  public 
benefits. 

The  treatises  of  Dr.  Charleton — we  beg  his  pardon  for 
not  mentioning  him  before — are  now  chiefly  remembered 
from  Dryden's  allusion  to  one  of  them,  though  his  "Brief 
Discourses  Concerning  the  Different  Arts  of  Men"  has 
pointed  many  a  paragraph  in  modern  social  essays,  for  which 
the  judicious  plagiarist  has  had  the  credit.  Never  did  a 
more  accomplished  or  more  lovable  man  pen  a  prescription 
than  the  once  famous  Dr.  Samuel  Garth,  the  friend  of  Dry- 
den,  Pope,  and  Steele,  the  noble  philanthropist,  who,  when 
at  the  top  of  his  profession,  "practised  among  the  poor  for 
nothing,"  the  scholarly  translator  of  Ovid,  the  ingenious 
author  of  one  of  the  best  mock  heroic  poems  in  Europe,  the 
poet  who  passed  the  heroic  couplet  perfect  into  the  hands 
of  Pope.  Alas  for  human  fame,  who  now  turns  over  the 
deserted  pages  of  "The  Dispensary"?  and  yet  it  contains 
lines  which  would  do  credit  to  the  highest  names  in  liter- 
ature. 

But  Garth  was  not  the  first  poet-physiciaru  That  honor 
must  be  claimed  by  Dr.  Andrew  Borde,  whose  dismal  lucu- 
brations lulled  the  ears  of  the  good  people  in  Henry  VHI.'s 
reign.  His  "Breviary  of  Health"  is  not  exhilarating,  yet  he 
could  tell  a  good  tale  as  well  as  any  one,  and  he  has  the 
doubtful  honor  of  being  the  Christian  name  of  the  original 
of  the  term  "Merry  Andrew,"  as  another  physician,  Para- 
celsus, has  furnished  us  with  the  term  bombast.  Over  Dr. 
Thomas  Lodge  we  must  pause  for  a  moment.  His  "Fig  for 
Momus"  is  one  of  the  earliest  series  of  satires  in  our  Ian- 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  205 

guage;  some  of  his  lyrics  are  divine  (turn,  reader,  to  his 
stanzas  on  "Beauty"  and  to  "Rosalynde's  Madrigal"),  and 
his  pretty  prose-tale  "Rosalynde ;  or,  Euphue's  Golden  Leg- 
acy," had  the  honor  of  furnishing  Shakespeare  with  the  plot 
of  "As  You  Like  It."  One  would  like  to  have  known  some- 
thing, by  the  way,  of  Shakespeare's  son-in-law,  Dr.  Hall,  for 
if  he  wrote  the  epitaphs  attributed  to  him  in  Stratford 
Church  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  no  ordinary  accom- 
plishments. Nor  must  we  pass  unnoticed  that  indefatigable 
physician,  Philemon  Holland,  who  though  no  poet  himself 
was  the  cause  of  poetry  in  others.  This  unwearied  scholar 
was  not  only  a  practising  physician,  but  a  schoolmaster  as 
well,  and  managed  in  the  intervals  of  his  double  vocation 
to  present  the  world  with  complete  versions  of  "Livy/' 
Pliny's  "Natural  History,"  Plutarch's  "Morals,"  Suetonius's 
"Lives  of  the  Caesars,"  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  Xenophon's 
"Cyropsedia,"  and  Camden's  "Britannia,"  with  other  works 
beside.  He  died,  in  his  prime  so  to  speak,  aged  eighty-six, 
having  never  had  occasion  to  wear  spectacles,  and  meditat- 
ing other  translations.  Truly  they  were  giants  in  those  days ; 
if  Hygeia  hid  her  secrets,  she  revealed  her  presence.  Per- 
haps the  faculty  have  no  great  reason  to  be  proud  of  the 
irrepressible  Sir  Richard  Blackmore,  who,  undismayed  by 
the  savage  onslaughts  first  of  Dryden  and  subsequently  of 
Pope,  complacently  produced  poems  as  fast  as  the  world 
forgot  them.  His  "Prince  Arthur,"  his  "Alfred,"  and  his 
"Eliza"  were  given  up  even  by  his  admirers,  but  his  "Cre- 
ation," considered  by  Dennis  superior  to  the  "De  Rerum 
Natura,"  was  described  by  Addison  as  one  of  the  most  useful 
and  noble  productions  in  our  English  verse,  and  has  elicited 
a  warm  eulogy  from  Dr.  Johnson.  Let  those  read  it  who 
can.  Most  of  poor  Blackmore's  lucubrations,  as  he  loved 
to  call  them,  were  written  in  his  coach  while  he  was  hurry- 
ing from  patient  to  patient — or,  as  Pope  maliciously  puts 
it,  "written  to  the  rumbling  of  his  chariot  wheels." 

What  Blackmore  was  in  verse  that  was  Sir  John  Hill  in 
prose.     To  us  this  unwearied  scribbler — who  among  other 


ao6        DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

things  had  tried  his  hand  at  writing  farces — is  best  known 
by  Garrick's  epigram: 

For  physic  and  farces  his  equal  there  scarce  is, 
For  his  farces  are  physic,  his  physic  a  farce  is. 

Yet  he  began  well  with  a  translation  of  Theophrastus's 
"Treatise  on  Gems,"  and  his  "Vegetable  System,"  in  twen- 
ty-six folios,  representing  no  less  than  twenty-six  thousand 
figures  of  plants  drawn  from  nature,  deserves  the  gratitude 
of  botanists.  His  squabbles  with  the  Royal  Society,  with 
Fielding,  Smart,  and  others,  amused  the  literary  world  of 
London  for  many  years.  Poor  Christopher  Smart  gave  it 
him  well  in  a  satire  (the  "Hilliad")*  which  is  still  worth 
reading,  and  from  which  Disraeli  gives  some  amusing  ex- 
tracts. Essays,  farces,  novels,  epigrams,  libels,  disserta- 
tions, learned  treatises,  scurrilous  pamphlets,  letters,  and 
even  sermons  flowed  in  unbroken  succession  from  Hill's 
facile  pen,  and  a  catalogue  of  his  writings  would  be  the 
catalogue  of  no  inconsiderable  library.  His  proper  place, 
however,  was  and  now  is  with  his  brother  quack  who  dis- 
graced another  profession — Orator  Henley, 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  to  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  of  whose  splendid 
genius  and  sweet  temper  Swift,  niggard  in  praise  though  he 
was,  could  say  to  Pope,  "He  has  more  wit  than  we  all  have, 
and  his  humanity  is  equal  to  his  wit."  Those  who  can 
relish  polished  satire,  delicate  and  exquisite  humor,  will 
turn  again  and  again  to  the  shabby  old  volumes,  guiltless 
as  yet  of  reprint,  which  contain  "The  History  of  John  Bull," 
"The  Treatise  Concerning  the  Altercation  or  Scolding  of 
the  Ancients,"  and  "The  Art  of  Political  Lying."  There 
probably  never  existed  an  author  more  careless  about  liter- 
ary distinction ;  Pope  and  Swift  had  during  his  lifetime,  and 

*  Describing  him  in  these  complimentary  lines : 

On  mere  privation  she  (Nature)  bestow'd  a  frame, 

And  dignified  a  nothing  with  a  name, 

A  wretch  devoid  of  use,  of  sense,  of  grace. 

The  insolvent  tenant  of  encumber'd  space  1 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  207 

have  had  ever  since,  the  credit  of  having  produced  much  of 
Arbuthnot's  best  and  most  characteristic  work.  We  are  for 
instance  as  confident  that  Arbuthnot  wrote  the  introduction 
and  opening  chapters  of  Martinus  Scriblerus  as  if  we  had 
seen  the  letters  wet  from  his  pen.  There  is  no  mistaking  his 
touch,  and  yet  every  one  goes  on  assigning  those  masterly 
pages  to  Swift  or  Pope.  As  a  man  this  humorist-physician 
seems  to  have  approached  perfection  as  nearly  as  was  ever 
permitted  to  our  erring  race.  Well  might  the  arch  cynic 
exclaim  when  Arbuthnot's  placid  and  benevolent  figure,  no- 
ble heart,  and  guileless  life  came  up  before  his  memory,  "If 
the  world  had  but  a  dozen  Arbuthnots  in  it,  I  would  burn 
my  'Gulliver's  Travels.'  " 

There  was  another  future  physician,  "whose  humanity 
was  equal  to  his  wit,"  romping  along  Irish  lanes  when 
Arbuthnot  was  passing  to  his  rest  down  the  dark  road 
which  he  had  brightened  for  so  many — for  was  not  Oliver 
Goldsmith  an  M.  D.?  But  whither  are  we  straying?  Cow- 
ley's slighted  ghost  whispers  that  he  too— "the  darling  of 
Dryden's  youth"— the  Pindar  of  England,  "the  lord  of  the 
metaphysical  school,"  the  most  fascinating  of  English  essay- 
ists, was  one  of  the  faculty.  He  did  not  get  much  prac- 
tise, we  are  told :  he  probably  preferred  the  fields  of  Chert- 
sey  and  the  pleasant  rooms  of  the  Royal  Society — where 
he  could  pick  up  the  Reverend  Mr.  Sprat  for  an  evening's 
carouse — to  the  sick-chamber  and  the  querulous  patient. 
Lovers  of  Italian  poetry  will  not  forget  to  couple  with  Cow- 
ley Francis  Redi,  whose  "Bacco  in  Toscana"  is  one  of  the 
most  delightful  "Pindarics"  in  the  world.  He  was  for 
many  years  Court  physician  to  Ferdinand  II.  and  Cosmo 
III.  Returning  now  to  the  eighteenth  century,  we  must 
not  omit  Dr.  Mark  Akenside,  the  author  of  "The  Pleasures 
of  Imagination,"  a  poem  which  must  always  rank  among 
the  gems  of  didactic  poetry— a  haughty  and  scholarly  soul, 
one  of  the  few  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century  who  had 
drunk  deep  at  Greek  fountains.  Had  he  not  frittered  away 
his  genius  in  writing  tame  lyrics,  and  had  he  devoted  him- 
self to  satire,  he  might  have  rivaled  the  masterpieces  of 


208  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

Juvenal  and  Dryden ;  so  thought  Macaulay,  and  so  will 
think  every  one  who  turns  to  the  picture  of  Pulteney,  man- 
gled and  battered  in  the  ruthless  couplets  of  "Curio." 
Akenside's  blank  verse  is  charming,  and  we  shall  have  to 
go  back  to  the  Elizabethan  masters  to  find  anything  so 
plastic,  so  richly  cadenced,  so  variously  harmonious.  His 
"Inscriptions"  and  his  "Hymn  to  the  Naiades"  are  more 
thoroughly  Hellenic  than  anything  English  literature  had 
to  show  since  Milton.  We  wonder  they  are  not  selected 
for  translations  at  the  universities.  He  appears  to  have 
been  more  successful  as  a  poet  than  as  a  medical  practi- 
tioner, and  one  of  the  retorts  he  got  from  a  recalcitrant 
patient  is  worth  recording.  "Doctor,"  said  the  wag,  "after 
all  your  remarks,  my  opinion  of  your  profession  is  this : 
the  ancients  endeavored  to  make  it  a  science  and  failed, 
and  the  moderns  to  make  it  a  trade  and  succeeded."  Smol- 
lett ungratefully  introduced  him  in  "Peregrine  Pickle"  as 
Dr.  Smelfungus. 

Contemporary  with  Akenside,  and  intimately  acquainted 
with  him,  was  Dr.  Armstrong,  whose  taciturnity  has  been 
immortalized  by  Thomson,  whose  surliness  and  cynicism 
seem  to  have  furnished  Abernethy  with  a  model,  and  whose 
genius  is  evinced  in  "The  Art  of  Preserving  Health."  He 
began  his  career  with  "The  Economy  of  Love,"  a  poem 
which  speaks  more  for  his  honesty  than  for  his  tact  and 
delicacy.  Besides  his  chef-d'ceiwre  just  alluded  to — a  poem 
which  in  spite  of  its  prolixity  abounds  in  really  eloquent 
passages — he  produced  a  volume  of  essays,  a  number  of 
medical  treatises,  and  several  miscellaneous  pieces.  He  fa- 
vored the  public  also  with  some  verses  which  he  was  pleased 
to  call  "Imitations  of  Shakespeare." 

Next  on  our  list  stands  Dr.  James  Grainger,  whose  ode 
on  "Solitude,"  praised  so  highly  by  Johnson,  who  paid  the 
author  the  high  compliment  of  repeating  "with  great  ener- 
gy" the  exordium,  was  also  one  of  the  favorite  poems  of 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne.  His  didactic  poem,  "The  Sugar 
Cane,"  has  gone  the  way  of  his  friend  Smart's  "Hop  Gar- 
den."   It  is  a  curious  monument  of  the  misplaced  ingenuity 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  209 

of  the  eighteenth  century.  Addison  observes  of  Virgil  that 
he  tosses  about  his  manure  with  an  air  of  majesty,  and 
poor  Grainger's  attempts  to  be  majestic  over  receipts  for 
a  compost  of  weeds,  mould,  and  stale,  and  over  the  symp- 
toms and  cure  of  the  yaws,  his  bathetic  line,  "Now,  Muse, 
let's  sing  of  rats,"  was  too  much  for  the  gravity  of  a  polite 
circle  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's  who  had  been  assembled 
to  hear  the  poet  read  his  manuscript.  His  description^  how- 
ever, of  a  hurricane  and  earthquake,  and  his  episodic  tale  of 
Junio  and  Theana,  have  been  justly  commended  by  Chal- 
mers, but  "The  Sugar  Cane"  has,  we  fear,  sunk  below 
extracts.  His  version  of  Tibullus  is  sometimes  happy, 
though  what  poetical  powers  he  had  were  probably 
quenched  by  hack-work  and  profession-struggles.  He  died 
at  St.  Christopher's  in  December,  1767.  In  Tobias  Smol- 
lett medicine  must  recognize  one  of  its  brightest  literary 
ornaments,  and  his  admirers  are  not  likely  to  complain  of 
the  neglect  of  their  favorite,  though  since  Dickens  made 
his  appearance  it  may  be  questioned  whether  there  is  any 
one  who  could,  like  Person,  repeat  whole  scenes  from  his 
novels.  Dickens's  more  refined  humor  has  spoiled  us  for 
the  coarser  and  more  homely  work  of  the  Scotch  surgeon, 
yet  is  the  day  far  distant  when  Strap,  and  Pipes,  and  Com- 
modore Trunnion,  and  Bowling,  and  Lismahago,  and 
Mathew  Bramble  shall  cease  to  charm.  What  wondrous 
vitality  this  man  must  have  had,  what  hardships  he  strug- 
gled through,  proudly  and  silently.  No  wonder  he  wagged 
a  bitter  tongue,  and  wielded  an  irritable  and  caustic  pen. 
He  knew  men  far  too  well  to  respect  them,  though  one  could 
have  wished  that  there  had  been  a  little  more  of  the  gener- 
ous tolerance,  the  higher  tone,  the  nobler  spirit  of  Henry 
Fielding,  in  his  rough  transcripts  from  life.  There  goes  a 
story  that  he  once  went  to  visit  his  mother  in  disguise  after 
a  period  of  long  absence,  and  that  she  recognized  him  by 
"his  old  roguish  smile."  It  is  this  roguish  smile  that  lights 
up  every  page  of  his  writings,  plays  over  all  the  sordid 
scenes  and  dismal  holes  in  which  his  genius  too  often  loves 
to  ling^er.    He  died  world-worn,  exhausted,  at  Leghorn  in 


210  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

1781,  aged  only  fifty-one.  Could  he  have  held  out  for  a 
year  or  two  longer  he  would  have  ended  his  toilsome  days 
— and  his  arduous  struggles  with  poverty — on  a  handsome 
estate  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  handsome  competence. 

Six  years  before  Smollett  died  there  passed  away  an- 
other physician  whose  memory  is  still  preserved  at  Cam- 
bridge by  the  medals  given  annually  for  Greek  and  Latin 
Odes  and  Epigrams;  this  was  Sir  William  Browne.  In 
all  the  annals  of  eccentricity  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
his  match.  He  was  an  excellent  scholar,  and  is  the  author 
of  numberless  treatises  on  literary,  political,  and  scientific 
subjects.  When  Foote  introduced  him  on  his  "Devil  Upon 
Two  Sticks,"  and  made  him  the  laughing-stock  of  half 
London,  instead  of  being  offended  the  good  doctor  sent  the 
cruel  wag  a  card  complimenting  him  on  his  successful  cari- 
cature, but  adding  that,  as  he  had  forgotten  his  muflf,  he 
took  the  liberty  of  sending  him  the  very  one  he  wore,  to 
complete  the  resemblance.  In  his  will,  which  was  written 
in  a  medley  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  English,  his  devotion  to 
Horace  is  singularly  illustrated.  "On  my  coffin  when  in  the 
grave  I  desire  may  be  deposited  in  its  leather-case  my  pock- 
et Elzevir  Horace — Comes  viae  vitaeque  dulcis  et  utilis,  worn 
out  with  and  by  me."  He  used  to  say  that  he  preferred 
St.  Luke  to  all  the  Evangelists,  because  of  the  purity  of  his 
Greek,  and  he  made  no  doubt  that  Dr.  Freind  was  quite 
right  when  he  asserted  that  this  purity  arose  from  the  Apos- 
tle's professional  familiarity  with  the  writings  of  the  Greek 
physician. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  another  phy- 
sician was  beginning  his  literary  career  at  Lichfield — Dr. 
Erasmus  Darwin,  once  one  of  the  most  popular  poets  in 
England.  In  some  respects  a  foolish  and  eccentric  man, 
he  yet  managed  to  accomplish  a  good  deal  of  solid  work 
in  the  seventy  years  during  which  he  wrote  and  practised. 
His  "Botanic  Garden"  and  "Loves  of  the  Plants,"  his  mis- 
cellaneous pieces,  and  his  "Temple  of  Nature,"  are  poems 
full  of  splendid  and  sonorous  declamation^  and  are  perhaps 
the  most  successful  attempts  to  embody  the  truths  of  sci- 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  211 

ence  in  verse  which  have  ever  been  made  in  English.  His 
high-flown  and  extravagant  style  was  inimitably  parodied 
by  Canning  and  Frere  in  the  "Loves  of  the  Triangles,"  but 
it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  from  this  poet-doctor 
Campbell  learned  the  principles  of  his  versification.  His 
great,  his  damning  defect  is  his  want  of  variety  and  repose. 
Like  Claudian,  he  cloys  by  his  monotonous  sweetness;  like 
Gibbon  and  Macaulay,  he  wearies  by  his  unrelieved  bril- 
liance. Nor  must  we  forget  Dr.  John  Moore — the  father  of 
the  hero  of  Corunna.  His  voluminous  works  are  now  al- 
most forgotten — yet  two  of  them  at  least  scarcely  deserve 
such  a  fate.  In  his  "Zeluco"  he  illustrates  with  no  common 
power  the  eternal  truth  that  vice  is  but  gilded  woe,  and  that 
in  spite  of  all  appearances  to  the  contrary  the  prosperity 
of  the  scoundrel  is  hollow  and  unreal ;  in  another  novel, 
"Edward,"  he  reverses  the  picture :  they  are  both  drawn 
from  the  life,  and  are  the  fruits,  it  is  easy  to  see,  of  minute 
personal  observation  operating  on  exceptionally  wide  ex- 
perience. In  John  Leyden,  another  surgeon.  Sir  William 
Jones  might  have  found  a  rival  in  Oriental  lore^  and  Eng- 
lish literature  lost  a  graceful  and  accomplished  poet.  We 
have  often  thought  that  Sir  Walter  Scott's  memoir  of  this 
young  scholar — who  died  before  his  time  at  Batavia,  in 
Java,  August  28,  181 1 — is  the  most  delightful  of  his  mis- 
cellaneous works.  Everybody  knows  the  lines  in  "The 
Lord  of  the  Isles," 

Quench'd  is  his  lamp  of  varied  lore, 
That  loved  the  light  of  song  to  pour: 
A  distant  and  a  deadly  shore 
Has  Leyden's  cold  remains. 

Dr.  Walcot,  better  known  as  Peter  Pindar,  very  soon 
exchanged  medicine  for  preaching,  though  he  appears  to 
have  been  equally  unsuccessful  in  both.  The  doctor  had  a 
living  presented  to  him  in  Jamaica,  by  his  patron.  Sir  Will- 
iam Trelawny,  but  he  soon  "emptied  the  church."  He  used 
to  give  his  congregation  ten  minutes,  and  when  after  that 
time  no  one  appeared,  he  and  his  clerk  would  betake  them- 
selves to  the  sea-shore  to  shoot  ring-tailed  pigeons.    He  lies 


212  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

quiet  enough  now  in  St.  Paul's,  Covent  Garden,  but  for 
many  years  he  poured  out  series  after  series  of  libels  and 
satires  which  have  no  parallel  for  venomous  scurrility, 
coarse  and  boisterous  humor,  audacious  invective,  and  man- 
ifold ability.  They  used  to  make  poor  George  III.  and 
all  good  Tories  shake  in  their  shoes.  In  striking  contrast 
to  this  witty  reprobate  stand  those  respectable  physicians — 
Mason  Good,  Beddoes,  Currie,  and  Madden — who  contrib- 
uted much  interesting  matter  to  miscellaneous  literature. 
The  first  translated  Lucretius  into  blank  verse ;  the  second 
was  the  author  of  the  once  famous  essay  on  Health ;  the 
third  was  the  first  to  introduce  Robert  Burns  to  the  notice 
of  the  English  public ;  and  the  fourth  wrote  an  interesting 
work  on  the  "Infirmities  of  Men  of  Genius."  Bonnel  Thorn- 
ton, the  translator  of  Plautus,  and  the  author  of  some  of  the 
best  papers  in  the  Connoisseur,  deserves  notice,  and  so  also 
does  the  learned  and  indefatigable  Dr.  Aikin.  John  Locke, 
Crabbe,  and  Keats  prepared  themselves  for  surgeons,  and 
so  consequently  form  links  in  the  golden  chain,  and  Lever 
and  Samuel  Warren  also  walked  the  hospitals.  Nor  must 
we  forget  that  Sainte-Beuve,  the  prince  of  French  critics, 
is  also  to  be  numbered  among  the  votaries  of  Medicine. 

But  there  is  another  point  at  which  the  two  professions 
touch,  and  this  forms  one  of  the  most  pleasing  passages 
in  the  annals  of  literature ;  we  mean  the  relationship  be- 
tween men  of  genius  so  often  stricken  with  bodily  ailments, 
and  those  whose  care  and  duty  it  is  "to  stand  between  man 
and  his  doom."  Who  can  forget  Dryden's  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  services  of  Hobbes  and  Gibbons?  or 
Cheselden's  goodness  to  Pope?  or  Meade's  to  Gay?  or  Ar- 
buthnot's  to  every  literary  man  with  whom  he  came  into 
contact.  "There  is  no  end  of  my  kind  treatment  from  the 
faculty,"  writes  Pope,  a  few  weeks  before  he  died;  "they 
are  in  general  the  most  amiable  companions,  and  the  best 
friends  as  well  as  most  learned  men  I  know." 

Brocklesby's  tender  and  devoted  attention  to  Johnson 
and  Burke  was  as  honorable  to  the  faculty  as  to  literature. 
He  even  offered,  in  his  noble  admiration  of  Johnson,  to  take 


IN  OLD  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  ii^ 

his  irritable  patient  into  his  own  house ;  and  listen,  reader, 
to  Johnson's  dignified  compliment  to  medicine — was  it  not 
ample  fee? — 

Whether  what  Temple  says  be  true,  that  physicians  have  had 
more  learning  than  the  other  faculties,  I  will  not  stay  to  inquire, 
but  I  believe  every  man  has  found  in  physicians  great  liberality  and 
dignity  of  sentiment,  very  prompt  effusion  of  beneficence,  and  wil- 
lingness to  exert  a  lucrative  art  where  there  is  no  hope  of  lucre. 

Steele  had  many  acquaintances,  but  he  never  had  a  truer 
friend  than  Samuel  Garth,  M.  D.  It  was  to  his  doctor 
friend  that  he  dedicated  "The  Lover."  What  a  beautiful 
and  touching  testimony  is  this  to  the  humanity  of  the  ac- 
complished physician: 

.  .  .  .  We  forgive  you  that  our  mirth  is  often  insipid  to  you, 
while  you  sit  absent  to  what  passes  amongst  us  from  your  care  of 
such  as  languish  in  sickness.  We  are  sensible  that  their  distresses, 
instead  of  being  removed  by  company,  return  more  strongly  to  your 
imagination  by  comparison  of  their  condition  to  the  jollities  of 
health. 

The  best  friend  poor  Chatterton  ever  had  was  the  kind 
Bristol  surgeon.  Dr.  Cotton's  "Visions"  have  dropt  into 
oblivion,  but  Cowper's  acknowledgment  of  his  skill  and  care 
will  give  the  physician  of  St.  Albans  his  passport  to  im- 
mortality ;  and  as  long  as  "Pendennis"  shall  be  read,  so  long 
will  the  name  of  Dr.  John  EUiotson  be  deathless. 


MISCELLANEOUS    SKETCHES 


MEDICAL  ACCURACY  OF  CHARLES  DICKENS 


H 


OW  true  to  nature,  even  to  their  most  trivial  de- 
tails, almost  every  character  and  every  incident  in 
the  works  of  this  great  novelist  really  were,  is  best 
known  to  those  whose  tastes  or  whose  duties  led 
them  to  frequent  the  paths  of  life  from  which  Dickens 
delighted  to  draw. 

But  none,  except  medical  men,  can  judge  of  the  rare 
fidelity  with  which  Dickens  followed  the  great  Mother 
through  the  devious  paths  of  disease  and  death.  In  read- 
ing "Oliver  Twist"  and  "Dombey  and  Son,"  or  "The 
Chimes,"  or  even  "No  Thoroughfare,"  the  physician  often 
felt  tempted  to  say,  "What  a  gain  it  would  have  been  to 
physic  if  one  so  keen  to  observe  and  so  facile  to  describe  had 
devoted  his  powers  to  the  medical  art !"  It  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  his  description  of  hectic  (in  "Oliver  Twist") 
has  found  its  way  into  more  than  one  standard  work  in  both 
medicine  and  surgery  (Miller's  "Principle  of  Surgery," 
second  edition,  p.  46 ;  also  Dr.  Aikin's  "Practise  of  Medi- 
cine," third  edition,  vol.  i.,  p.  iii;  also  several  American 
and  French  books)  ;  that  he  anticipated  the  clinical  re- 
searches of  M.  Dax,  Broca,  and  Hughlings  Jackson,  on  the 
connection  of  right  hemiplegia  with  asphasia  {vide  "Dom- 
bey and  Son,"  for  the  last  illness  of  Mrs.  Skewton)  ;  and 
that  his  descriptions  of  epilepsy  in  Walter  Wilding,  and  of 
moral  and  mental  insanity  in  characters  too  numerous  to 
mention,  show  the  hand  of  a  master.  It  is  feeble  praise  to 
add  that  he  was  always  just,  and  generally  generous  to  our 
profession.  Even  his  descriptions  of  our  Bob  Sawyers,  and 
their  less  reputable  friends,  always  wanted  the  coarseness, 
and,  let  us  add,  the  unreality,  of  Albert  Smith's  (yet  Smith 
was  a  Middlesex  student)  ;  so  that  we  ourselves  could  well 
afiford  to  laugh  with  the  man  who  sometimes  laughed  at  us, 
but  laughed  only  as  one  who  loved  us. 

British  Medical  Journal. 


OLD  PHYSICIANS 

T  IS  difficult  to  understand  why  special  physi- 
cians, such  as  Galen  and  Avicenna  and  Car- 
dan should  have  gained  a  vast  repute,  nay,  a 
vaster  repute,  as  successful  physicians,  than  is 
ever  gained  in  our  time.  Were  their  prescriptions  to  be 
now  used,  it  is  certain  that  far  more  patients  would  be 
killed  by  them  than  by  disease ;  yet  there  was  a  time  when 
they  were  supposed,  at  least,  to  save  life  with  marvelous 
success.  Galen's  principle  is  described  in  the  following 
words :  "Given  a  disease,  determine  its  character  as  hot  or 
cold,  moist  or  dry,  by  an  effort  of  imagination ;  having 
done  so,  select  a  remedy  which  has  been  catalogued  as  pos- 
sessing opposite  qualities." 

And  here  is  one  of  his  prescriptions: — "For  example, 
under  the  head  of  'dysentery,'  he  gives  for  indiscriminate 
selection,  according  to  taste,  nine  recipes,  most  of  which 
are  incorporated  in  the  formulae  of  Paulus  ^gineta,  of 
which  the  following  are  specimens : — 'Of  the  ashes  of  snails, 
p.  iv. ;  of  galls,  p.  ii. ;  of  peper,  p.  i.  Reduce  to  a  fine  pow- 
der, and  sprinkle  upon  the  condiments,  or  give  to  drink  in 
water,  or  a  white,  watery  wine.'  " 

How  was  it  that  such  principles  and  such  remedies  ever 
gained  even  the  modest  reputation  of  being  better  than 
nothing?  Here  again  is  a  grand  prescription  of  the  Ara- 
bian school: — 

"One  of  the  most  favorite  of  their  preparations,  which 
went  by  the  name  of  Theriacum,  was  composed  of  the  fol- 
lowing substances: — Squills,  hedychroum^  cinnamon,  com- 
mon pepper,  juice  of  poppies,  dried  roses,  water-germander, 
rape  seed,  Illyrian  iris,  agaric,  liquorice,  opobalsam,  myrrh, 
saflFron,  ginger,  rhaponticum,  cinquefoil,  calamint,  hore- 
hound,   stone-parsley,   cassidony,   costus,  white  and   long- 


OLD  PHYSICIANS  219 

pepper,  dittany,  flowers  of  sweet  rush,  male  frankincense, 
turpentine,  mastich,  black  cassia,  spikenard,  flowers  of  po- 
ley,  storax,  parsley  seed,  seseli,  shepherd's  pouch,  bishop's 
weed,  germander,  ground  pine,  juice  of  hypocistis,  Indian 
leaf,  Celtic  nard,  spignel,  gentian,  anise,  fennel  seed,  Lem- 
nian  earth,  roasted  chalcitis,  amomum,  sweet  flag,  balsa- 
mum.  Pontic  valerian,  St.  John's  wort,  acacia,  gum,  carda- 
mom, carrot  seed,  galbanum,  sagapen,  bitumen,  oposonax, 
castor,  centaury,  clematis,  Attic  honey,  and  Falernian  wine. 
Sixty-six  ingredients  composed  this  mixture,  and  with  the 
exception  of  the  last,  we  may  safely  affirm  that  the  phy- 
sicians who  prescribed  it  were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  ef- 
fects of  any  one  of  them,  either  taken  by  those  in  health 
or  given  to  the  sick." 

J.  Rutherford  Russell,  M.  D. 


M 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  ANESTHESIA 

EANTIME,  events  were  developing  which  led 
presently  to  a  revelation  of  greater  immediate  im- 
portance to  humanity  than  any  other  discovery 
that  had  come  in  the  century,  perhaps  in  any 
field  of  science  whatever.  This  was  the  discovery  of  the 
pain-dispelling  power  of  the  vapor  of  sulphuric  ether,  in- 
haled by  a  patient  undergoing  a  surgical  operation.  This 
discovery  came  solely  out  of  America,  and  it  stands  curi- 
ously isolated,  since  apparently  no  minds  in  any  other 
country  were  trending  toward  it  even  vaguely,  Davy,  in 
England,  had  indeed  originated  the  method  of  medication 
by  inhalation,  and  carried  out  some  most  interesting  experi- 
ments fifty  years  earlier,  and  it  was  doubtless  his  experi- 
ments with  nitrous  oxide  gas  that  gave  the  clew  to  one 
of  the  American  investigators ;  but  this  was  the  sole  contri- 
bution of  preceding  generations  to  the  subject,  and  since 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  when  Davy  turned  his  atten- 
tion to  other  matters,  no  one  had  made  the  slightest  ad- 
vance along  the  same  line  until  an  American  dentist  re- 
newed the  investigation.  Moreover,  there  had  been  noth- 
ing in  Davy's  experiments  to  lead  any  one  to  suspect  the 
possibility  that  a  surgical  operation  might  be  rendered 
painless  in  this  way ;  and,  indeed,  the  surgeons  of  Europe 
had  acknowledged  with  one  accord  that  all  hope  of  finding 
a  means  to  secure  this  most  desirable  end  must  be  utterly 
abandoned — that  the  surgeon's  knife  must  ever  remain  a 
synonym  for  slow  and  indescribable  torture.  By  odd  coin- 
cidence it  chanced  that  Sir  Benjamin  Brodie,  the  acknowl- 
edged leader  of  English  surgeons,  had  publicly  expressed 
this  as  his  deliberate  though  regretted  opinion  at  a  time 
when  the  quest  which  he  considered  futile  had  already  led 
to  the  most  brilliant  success  in  America,  and  while  the  an- 


DISCOVERY  OF  ANESTHESIA  221 

nouncement  of  the  discovery,  which  then  had  no  transatlan- 
tic cable  to  convey  it,  was  actually  on  its  way  to  the  Old 
World. 

The  American  dentist  just  referred  to,  who  was,  with 
one  exception  to  be  noted  presently,  the  first  man  in  the 
world  to  conceive  that  the  administration  of  a  definite  drug 
might  render  a  surgical  operation  painless,  and  to  give  the 
belief  application,  was  Dr.  Charles  W.  Wells,  of  Hartford, 
Conn.  The  drug  with  which  he  experimented  was  nitrous 
oxide ;  the  operation  which  he  rendered  painless  was  no 
more  important  than  the  extraction  of  a  tooth — yet  it  suf- 
ficed to  mark  a  principle ;  the  year  of  the  experiment  was 
1844. 

The  experiments  of  Dr.  Wells,  however,  though  im- 
portant, were  not  sufficiently  demonstrative  to  bring  the 
matter  prominently  to  the  attention  of  the  medical  world. 
The  drug  with  which  he  experimented  proved  not  always 
reliable,  and  he  himself  seems  ultimately  to  have  given 
the  matter  up,  or  at  least  to  have  relaxed  his  efforts.  But 
meantime  a  friend,  to  whom  he  had  communicated  his  be- 
lief and  expectations,  took  the  matter  up,  and  with  unremit- 
ting zeal  carried  forward  experiments  that  were  destined 
to  lead  to  more  tangible  results.  This  friend  was  another 
dentist.  Dr.  William  J.  Morton,  of  Boston,  then  a  young 
man,  full  of  youthful  energy  and  enthusiasm.  He  seems 
to  have  felt  that  the  drug  with  which  Wells  had  experi- 
mented was  not  the  most  practical  one  for  the  purpose,  and 
so  for  several  months  he  experimented  with  other  allied 
drugs,  until  finally  he  hit  upon  sulphuric  ether,  and  with 
this  was  able  to  make  experiments  upon  animals,  and  then 
upon  patients  in  the  dental  chair,  that  seemed  to  him  abso- 
lutely demonstrative. 

Full  of  eager  enthusiasm,  and  absolutely  confident  of  his 
results,  he  at  once  went  to  Dr.  J.  C.  Warren,  one  of  the 
foremost  surgeons  of  Boston,  and  asked  permission  to  test 
his  discovery  decisively  on  one  of  the  patients  at  the  Boston 
Hospital  during  a  severe  operation.  The  request  was 
granted;  the  test  was   made   in   September,    1846,  in   the 


322  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

presence  of  several  of  the  foremost  surgeons  of  the  city  and 
a  body  of  medical  students.  The  patient  slept  quietly  while 
the  surgeon's  knife  was  plied,  and  awoke  to  astonished 
comprehension  that  the  ordeal  was  over.  The  impossible, 
the  miraculous,  had  been  accomplished. 

Henry  Smith  Williams. 


on's  knife   vv 

was  over.      ih. 
..^.inplished. 
Henry  Smith  Williams. 


A NDRE  W     I  'ESA  L  / I'S 


THE  "BLACK  DEATH"  IN  THE  FOURTEENTH 
CENTURY 


T 


HE  Black  Death  reached  England  in  August,  1348, 
appearing  first  in  the  county  of  Dorset,  thence 
spreading  through  Devon  and  Somerset,  to  Bris- 
tol, Gloucester,  Oxford,  and  London;  in  fact, 
through  the  whole  country.  It  took  three  months  to  reach 
London.  Few  places  are  believed  to  have  escaped,  and 
only  a  tenth  part  of  the  inhabitants  were  thought  to  have 
remained  alive.  .  .  .  The  disease  was  so  contagious, 
that  not  only  by  being  with  the  sick,  but  by  looking  at 
them,  one  took  it  of  another;  so  that  people  died  without 
servants,  and  were  buried  without  priests.  The  father  did 
not  visit  his  son,  nor  the  son  his  father.  Charity  was 
dead,  and  hope  extinguished.  .  .  .  The  mortality  was 
everywhere  on  a  grand  scale.  Aleppo  lost  500  a  day,  Gaza 
22,000  in  all,  and  Cairo  15,000;  Genoa  lost  40,000,  Parma 
the  same  number,  Naples  60,000,  Siena  70,000;  Rome  an 
incalculable  number ;  Venice,  out  of  a  population  of  200,000, 
lost  70,000,  saw  90  patrician  families  extinguished,  and  its 
grand  council  of  1,250  reduced  to  380.  In  Florence  100,000 
perished  between  the  months  of  March  and  July.  In  Eng- 
land, Hecker  specifies  Yarmouth,  Norwich,  Bristol,  Oxford, 
Leicester,  York,  and  London,  as  cities  that  suffered  incredi- 
ble losses.  In  Yarmouth  7,052  died,  in  Norwich  51,100,  in 
London  100,000.  Cyprus  lost  almost  all  its  inhabitants,  and 
ships  without  crews  were  often  seen  in  the  Mediterranean, 
and  afterwards  in  the  North  Sea,  driving  about,  and 
spreading  the  plague  wherever  they  went  on  shore.  At 
Avignon  the  Pope  found  it  necessary  to  consecrate  the 
Rhone,  that  bodies  might  be  thrown  into  the  river  without 
delay,  as  the  churchyards  would  no  longer  hold  them. 
William  Augustus  Guy,  M.  B. 


ROYAL  DEATHS  FROM  SMALL-POX 


B 


Y  way  of  impressing  the  ravages  of  small-pox  in 
the  pre-Jennerian  period  on  people's  minds  in  a 
manner  more  picturesque  than  that  of  ordinary 
statistics,  Dr.  John  Gairdner  selects  the  history  of 
a  few  Royal  Houses.  Thus,  of  the  descendants  of  Charles 
I.  of  Great  Britain  he  finds  that  of  his  forty-two  lineal 
descendants  up  to  the  date  1712,  five  were  killed  outright 
by  small-pox ;  vis.,  his  son  Henry,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  and 
his  daughter  Mary,  wife  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  and 
mother  of  William  HI.;  and  three  of  the  children  of  James 
Hi;  viz.,  Charles,  Duke  of  Cambridge,  in  1677;  Mary, 
Queen  of  England,  and  wife  of  William  HI.,  in  1694 ;  and 
the  Princess  Maria  Louisa,  in  April  1712.  This  does  not 
include,  of  course,  severe  attacks  not  fatal,  such  as  those 
from  which  both  Queen  Anne  and  William  HL  suffered. 
Of  the  immediate  descendants  of  his  contemporary,  Louis 
XIV.  of  France  (who  himself  survived  a  severe  attack  of 
small-pox),  five  also  died  of  it  in  the  interval  between  171 1 
and  1774;  z'i".,  his  son  Louis,  the  Dauphin  of  France,  in 
April  of  171 1  ;  Louis,  Duke  of  Burgundy^  son  of  the  pre- 
ceding, and  also  Dauphin,  and  the  Dauphiness,  his  wife, 
in  1712;  their  son,  the  Due  de  Bretagne,  and  Louis  XV., 
the  great  grandson  of  Louis  XIV.  Among  other  royal 
deaths  from  small-pox  in  the  same  period  were  those  of 
Joseph  I.,  Emperor  of  Germany,  in  171 1 ;  Peter  IL,  Em- 
peror of  Russia,  in  1730;  Henry,  Prince  of  Prussia,  1767; 
Maximilian  Joseph,  Elector  of  Bavaria,  December  30,  1777. 

British  Medical  Journal. 


EXTRAORDINARY  SURGICAL  OPERATIONS 

T   was    necessary   that   a   dangerous    and    difficult 
operation   for  the  stone  should  be  performed  on 
Louis  XIV.,  and  several  men  afflicted  with  the  like 
disease  were  carried  to  the  house  of  Louvois,  the 
Minister,  where  the  chief  surgeon,   Felix,  operated   upon 
them  before  Fagon,  the  physician  of  the  King.     Most  of 
those  operated  on   died;  and  that  the   King  might  know 
nothing  of  his  dangerous  condition,  or  of  the  means  adopted 
to  ensure  certainty  and  safety  in  the  cure,  they  were  buried 
privately,    and   by   night.     The   operation   was    performed 
successfully  upon  the  King,  but  Felix  was  so  much  agi- 
tated that  a  nervous  tremor  settled  upon  him  for  life ;  and 
in  bleeding  a  friend  on  the  day  succeeding  that  upon  which 
the  King  had  been  so  happily  cured,  he  disabled  the  pa- 
tient irreparably.     When  Felip  de  Utre  went  in  search  of 
the  Omeguas  from  Venezuela,  he  was  wounded  by  a  spear 
just  beneath  the  right  arm.    A  Spaniard,  who  was  ignorant 
of  surgery,  undertook  to  cure  him,  and  De  litre's  coat  of 
mail  was  placed  upon  an  old  Indian  who  was  mounted  on  a 
horse;  the  amateur  surgeon  then  drove  a  spear  into  the 
Indian's   body,   through   the   hole   in    the   armor,   and    his 
body  having  been  opened,  the  spear  being  still  kept  in  the 
wound,  it  was  discovered  that  the  heart  was  uninjured; 
thus  they  assumed  that  De  litre's  wound  was  not  mortal, 
and  being  treated  as  if  the  wound  were  an  ordinary  one, 
he  recovered.     When  Henry   II.  of  France  was  mortally 
wounded  by  a  splinter  from  a  spear,  in  tilting  with  Mont- 
gomerie,  which  entered  his  vizor  and  pierced  his  eye,  the 
surgeons,  for  the  purpose  of  discovering  the  probable  injury 
done  to  the  King,  cut  ofif  the  heads  of  four  criminals,  and 
thrust  splinters  into  their  eyes,  as  nearly  at  the  same  in- 
clination as  the  fatal  one  had  entered  that  of  the  King. 
Ambrose   Fare's   "Strange   Cure   for   a   Cut-off  Nose," 


226  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

which  we  give  in  the  words  of  his  translator,  Johnson,  is 
very  remarkable: — "There  was  a  surgeon  of  Italy,  of  late 
years,  which  would  restore  the  portion  of  the  nose  that  was 
cut  away  thus: — He  first  scarified  the  callous  edges  of  the 
maimed  nose  round  about,  as  is  usually  done  in  the  cure 
pf  hare-lips ;  he  then  made  a  gash  or  cavity  in  the  muscle 
of  the  arm,  which  is  called  biceps,  as  large  as  the  greatness 
of  the  portion  of  the  nose  which  was  cut  away  did  re- 
quire ;  and  into  that  gash  or  cavity  so  made  he  would  put 
that  part  of  the  nose  so  wounded,  and  bind  the  patient's 
head  to  his  arm,  as  if  it  were  to  a  post,  so  fast  that  it  might 
remain  firm,  stable,  and  immovable,  and  not  lean  or  bow 
any  way ;  and  about  forty  days  after,  or  at  that  time  when 
he  judged  the  flesh  of  the  nose  was  perfectly  agglutinated 
with  the  flesh  of  the  arm,  cleaving  fast  unto  the  nose,  as  was 
sufficient  to  supply  the  defect  of  that  which  was  lost,  and 
then  he  would  m.ake  it  even,  and  bring  it,  as  by  licking,  to 
the  fashion  and  form  of  a  nose,  as  near  as  art  would  permit ; 
and  in  the  meanwhile  he  did  feed  his  patient  with  panadoes, 
jellies,  and  all  such  things  as  were  easy  to  be  swallowed 
5ind  digested." 

Irish  Quarterly  Review. 


EARLY  SURGEONS 

|HE  clergy  and  the  Jews  were  the  leading  men  of 
the  medical  profession  during  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  centuries.  From  1131  down  to  11 63,  the 
popes  took  occasion  to  thunder  against  practising 
ecclesiastics.  A  chief  justice,  about  the  year  1223,  recom- 
mended to  the  Bishop  of  Chichester  one  Master  Thomas,  an 
army  surgeon,  as  one  who  knew  how  to  cure  wounds,  a 
science  particularly  needed  in  the  siege  of  castles.  Barbers 
assisted  in  baths,  shaved,  and  applied  ointments.  Henry  V., 
at  Agincourt,  with  30,000  men,  had  one  surgeon  and  fifteen 
assistants.  During  the  reign  of  Henry  VHI.,  there  were 
twelve  surgeons  in  London.  In  15 12,  physicians  and  sur- 
geons had  to  be  approved  of  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  or 
the  Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  Females  were  everywhere  to  be 
met  with  practising  the  healing  art.  The  tooth-drawer's, 
now  the  dentist's  art,  is  not  of  recent  date.  Sir  John  Bla- 
grave,  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  had  all  his  teeth 
drawn,  and  afterwards  had  a  set  of  ivory  teeth  in  again. 
Otter,  in  Ben  Jonson's  "Silent  Woman,"  says  all  her  teeth 
were  made  in  the  Black  Friars. 

Social  History  of  the  Southern  Countries. 


REMARKABLE  INSTANCES   OF  CONTAGION 


T 


HE  following  remarks  are  applicable  chiefly  to 
typhus  fever  and  the  plague.  When  patients  are 
ill  of  typhus  fever,  there  issue  from  their  bodies 
certain  poisonous  effluvia,  which,  being  diffused 
through  the  air,  render  the  persons  who  are  exposed  to  the 
breathing  or  contact  of  them  liable  to  the  same  disease. 
These  effluvia  attach  themselves  to  various  substances,  to 
clothes,  to  bedding,  to  furniture ;  and  such  as  receive  the 
effluvia  from  these  are  in  like  manner  generally  infected 
with  the  same  disease.  Wool,  cotton,  and  fur  carry  con- 
tagion to  a  great  distance  in  a  very  concentrated  state.  In- 
stances have  been  known  of  persons  being  struck  dead  while 
opening  a  bale  of  cotton,  which  had  come  from  a  place  in- 
fected with  the  plague.  Dr.  Parr  of  Exeter,  relates: — 
"The  last  plague  which  infected  the  town  in  which  we  now 
write,  arose  from  a  traveller  remarking  to  his  companion, 
that  in  a  former  journey,  he  had  the  plague  in  a  room  where 
they  sat.  'In  that  corner,'  said  he,  'was  a  cupboard,  where 
the  bandages  were  kept ;  it  is  now  plastered,  but  they  are 
probably  there  still.'  He  took  the  poker,  broke  down  the 
plaster,  and  found  them.  The  disease  was  soon  dissem- 
inated, and  extensively  fatal."  From  the  above  statements 
we  see  the  necessity  of  thoroughly  cleaning  everything  con- 
nected with  the  house,  and  the  bed  and  body-clothes  of 
patients  who  have  fever,  and  of  burning  everything  that 
cannot  be  completely  cleansed ;  and  the  indispensable  neces- 
sity of  quarantine  laws,  judiciously  made,  and  rigorously 
enforced. 

These  poisonous  particles  do  not  appear  to  be  very  widely 
diffused  through  the  air,  nor  do  they  infect  persons  in  an 
adjoining  street,  room,  or  house,  unless  they  be  exposed  to 
the  substances  to  which  the  effluvia  adhere,  or  unless  they 


INSTANCES  OF  CONTAGION  229 

come  too  near  to  the  patient  himself.  When  one  or  more 
persons,  ill  of  typhus  fever,  are  kept  in  a  small  ill-aired 
apartment,  when  their  clothes  are  not  cleaned,  and  their  dis- 
charges are  not  duly  carried  out,  the  poison  acquires  a  most 
malignant  virulence,  and  persons  going  near  the  apartment 
are  almost  sure  to  be  infected.  It  would  appear  that  a 
healthy  person,  confined  in  an  ill-ventilated  and  unwhole- 
some apartment,  generates  a  contagion  of  the  most  per- 
nicious kind,  which  may  infect  others,  though  he  himself  is 
not  ill  of  the  disease.  This  was  remarkably  shown  at  the 
Old  Bailey  in  1750,  when  a  culprit  in  good  health  was 
brought  out  for  trial,  and  the  e'ffluvia  from  his  body  and 
clothes  infected  a  number  of  persons  in  court — not  fewer 
than  forty. 

John  Times,  F.  S.  A. 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  1665,  AT  EYAM 

JYAM,  a  hamlet  secluded  among  the  hills  of  the 
Peak  of  Derbyshire,  is  about  150  miles  from  Lon- 
don, and  had  a  population  of  350  souls.  Quite 
early  in  the  month  of  September,  when  the  plague 
was  at  its  worst  in  London,  there  was  sent  from  London  to 
one  George  Vicars,  a  tailor,  a  box  of  clothes.  He  opened 
the  box  and  hung  the  clothes  to  the  fire,  and  while  he 
watched  them  was  suddenly  seized  with  violent  sickness  and 
other  alarming  symptoms.  On  the  second  day  he  was  worse, 
and  he  died  on  the  following  night,  September  6.  The  dis- 
ease spread  from  this  centre;  by  March  i,  1666,  it  had  de- 
stroyed 58  souls ;  and  by  the  beginning  of  June,  yj,  or  more 
than  one  in  five  of  the  population.  About  the  middle  of 
June,  the  plague  began  to  increase ;  and  then  it  was  that 
Mrs.  Mompesson,  the  rector's  wife,  implored  her  husband  to 
remove,  with  herself  and  their  two  young  children,  from 
this  doomed  village.  But  he,  alleging  his  duty  to  his  suf- 
fering flock  and  his  responsibility  to  his  Maker,  and  point- 
ing out  the  stain  which  would  rest  on  his  memory  did  he 
desert  his  post  in  this  hour  of  danger,  determined  to  remain. 
He,  on  his  part,  tried  to  persuade  his  wife  to  take  their 
children  with  her  to  some  place  of  safety,  till  the  plague 
should  be  stayed.  But  she  declared  that  nothing  should  in- 
duce her  to  leave  him  alone  amid  such  ravages  of  death. 
Her  children,  however,  she  would  send  away.  It  was  at  this 
time  (about  mid-June)  that  the  inhabitants,  wishing  to  fol- 
low the  example  of  the  few  wealthy  who  had  left  early  in 
the  spring,  and  of  a  few  others  who  had  built  huts  for  them- 
selves in  the  neighborhood,  would  have  deserted  the  village 
en  masse.  But  now  Mompesson,  with  his  own  example  and 
that  of  his  wife  to  back  him,  pleaded  so  effectually  the 
selfishness  and  the  uselessness  of  such  a  course,  the  danger 
to  the  neighborhood,  and  the  slight  chance  of  profit  to  them- 


THE  PLAGUE  OF  1665  231 

selves,  that  the  inhabitants  were  induced  to  give  up  all 
thoughts  of  flight.  Mompesson  then  concerted  measures 
with  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  who  remained  at  Chatsworth 
during  the  plague,  and  with  his  assistance  established  and 
carried  out  an  efficient  quarantine.  A  circle  was  drawn 
round  the  village  at  a  distance  of  about  half  a  mile,  beyond 
which  no  inhabitant  should  pass,  and  to  two  or  three  chosen 
spots  provisions  were  brought  every  morning  by  persons 
from  the  neighborhood,  who  immediately  retired.  Men  ap- 
pointed by  the  rector  fetched  these  provisions,  and  left  the 
purchase-money  for  the  few  articles  not  given  by  the  earl, 
in  troughs  of  water.  Towards  the  end  of  June,  the  plague 
began  to  rage  even  more  fearfully.  There  were  so  many 
deaths  that  the  passing  bell  was  no  longer  rung,  the  church- 
yard was  no  longer  used  for  interment,  and  the  church  door 
was  closed.  The  rector  read  prayers  and  preached  from 
an  arch  in  an  ivy-mantled  rock,  in  a  secluded  dingle,  to  his 
people  seated  on  the  grass,  at  some  distance  from  each 
other.  All  this  time,  though  Mompesson  had  been  visiting 
from  house  to  house,  he  and  his  wife  had  escaped ;  but  on 
August  22,  Mrs.  Mompesson  was  seized,  and  three  days 
after  was  at  rest  in  the  village  churchyard.  In  this  terrible 
month  of  August  there  were  yy  deaths  out  of  a  population 
of  less  than  200  remaining  at  the  beginning  of  the  month. 
At  least  two  in  every  five  must  have  died.  The  hot  month 
of  September  proved  less  fatal,  and  on  October  11  the 
plague,  as  if  exhausted  with  excessive  slaughter,  held  its 
hand.  It  had  attacked  "j^  families,  and  swept  away  267  out 
of  350  inhabitants — say  seven  in  nine.  These  are  the  figures 
taken  from  the  parish  register.  Mompesson  states  the  death 
as  259;  it  is  likely,  therefore,  that  eight  died  from  causes 
other  than  plague.  Mompesson,  the  hero  of  this  sad  tragedy, 
left  Eyam  in  1669,  three  years  after  the  plague  had  ceased, 
for  a  living  in  Nottinghamshire^  where,  so  fearful  were  the 
people  even  then  of  the  plague  in  which  he  had  lived  and 
worked  so  long,  that  he  was  obliged  to  live  in  a  secluded 
hut  till  their  fears  had  died  away. 

William  Augustus  Guy,  M.  B. 


EPISODES  OF  THE  GREAT  PLAGUE  OF  LONDON 

ONDON  has  frequently  suffered  from  the  ravages 
of  pestilence,  and  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  the  inhabitants  have  been  swept  by  its  virulence 
into  one  common  grave.  But  at  no  period  of  its 
history  was  the  mortality  so  devastating  as  in  the  year  1665, 
the  "last  great  visitation,"  as  it  is  emphatically  entitled  by 
De  Foe  in  his  "Journal  of  the  Plague  Year."  This  work  was 
originally  published  in  1722 :  now,  as  De  Foe  was  only  two 
years  of  age  when  the  great  pestilence  occurred,  his  "Jour- 
nal" was  long  considered  as  much  a  work  of  imagination 
as  his  "Robinson  Crusoe" ;  but  there  is  abundant  evidence 
of  his  having  compiled  the  "Journal"  from  contemporary 
sources  (as  the  Collection  of  all  the  Bills  of  Mortality  for 
1665,  published  as  "London's  Dreadful  Visitation" ;  the 
"Loimologia"  of  Dr.  Hodges ;  and  "God's  Terrible  Voice  in 
the  City,"  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Vincent,  1667)  ;  and  many  of 
the  events  which  De  Foe  records  derive  collateral  support 
from  the  respective  Diaries  of  Pepys,  Evelyn,  and  Lord 
Clarendon — works  which  were  not  published  until  very  long 
after  De  Foe's  decease,  and  the  manuscripts  of  which  he 
could  never  have  perused.  De  Foe  is  believed  to  have  been 
familiar  with  the  manuscript  account  of  the  "Great  Plague," 
formerly  in  the  Sloane  Collection,  and  now  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum,  by  William  Boghurst,  a  medical  practition- 
er. It  is  a  thin  quarto  manuscript  of  170  pages,  from  which 
only  a  few  extracts  have  been  published.  Boghurst  was  an 
apothecary  in  St.  Giles's-in-the-Fields ;  and  he  states  that 
he  was  the  only  person  who  had  then  (1666)  written  on  the 
late  plague  from  experience  and  observation.  Rapin  and 
Hume  have  recorded  the  event  in  little  more  than  a  single 
sentence ;  but  Dr.  Lingard  has  grouped  the  details  of  De 
Foe's  "Journal"  into  a  terrific  picture,  which  has  been  com- 


GREAT  PLAGUE  OF  LONDON  233 

pared  to  the  celebrated  delineation  of  the  Plague  of  Athens 
by  Thucydides. 

The  Great  Plague  was  imported  in  December,  1664,  by 
goods  from  Holland,  where,  in  Amsterdam  alone,  20,000 
persons  had  been  carried  off  by  the  same  infection  within 
a  short  time.  The  infected  goods  were  opened  at  a  house 
in  St.  Giles's  parish,  near  the  upper  end  of  Drury  Lane, 
wherein  died  four  persons ;  and  the  parish  books  record  of 
this  period  the  appointment  of  searchers,  shutting  up  in- 
fected houses,  and  contributions  by  assessment  and  sub- 
scription. A  Frenchman  who  lived  near  the  infected  house 
in  Drury  Lane  removed  into  Bearbinder  Lane  (leading  to 
St.  Swithin's  Lane),  where  he  died,  and  thus  spread  the 
distemper  in  the  city.  Between  December  and  the  ensuing 
April,  the  deaths  without  the  walls  of  the  city  greatly  in- 
creased, and  in  May  every  street  in  St.  Giles's  was  infected. 
In  July,  in  August,  and  September,  the  deaths  ranged  from 
1,000  to  7,000  per  week;  and  4,000  are  stated  to  have  died 
in  one  fatal  night !  In  the  latter  month  fires  were  burnt  in 
the  streets  three  nights  and  days,  "to  purge  and  purify  the 
air. 

The  Court  removed  from  Whitehall  to  Hampton  Court, 
and  thence  to  Salisbury  and  Oxford;  and  the  Londoners, 
leaving  their  city,  carried  the  infection  into  the  country ;  so 
that  it  spread,  towards  the  end  of  this  and  the  following 
year,  over  a  great  part  of  England.  The  plague  gradually 
abated  in  the  metropolis ;  but  it  was  not  until  November  20, 
1666,  that  public  thanksgivings  were  offered  up  to  God  for 
assuaging  the  pestilence  in  London,  Westminster ;  and  with- 
in the  bills  of  mortality  there  were  reported  dead  of  the 
plague  in  1664-5,  68,596;  probably  less  by  one-third  than 
the  actual  number. 

Among  the  plague  medicines  were  pill  rufus  and  Venice 
treacle.  Another  antidote  was  sack.  Tobacco  was  used  as 
a  prophylactic ;  and  amulets  were  worn  against  infection. 

Among  many  touching  episodes  of  the  plague,  is  that  of 
a  blind  Highland  bagpiper,  who,  having  fallen  asleep  upon 
the  steps  of  St.  Andrew's  Church,  Holborn  Hill,  was  con- 


234  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

veyed  away  in  the  dead  cart;  and  but  for  the  howling  of 
his  faithful  dog,  which  waked  him  from  his  trance,  he  would 
have  been  buried  as  a  corpse.  Of  the  piper  and  his  dog,  a 
group  was  sculptured  by  Caius  Gabriel  Gibber.  Another 
episode  is  that  of  a  grocer  in  Wood  Street,  Gheapside,  who 
shut  himself  up  with  his  family,  with  a  store  of  provisions, 
his  only  communication  being  by  a  wicket  made  in  the  door, 
and  a  rope  and  pulley  to  draw  up  or  let  anything  down  into 
the  street;  and  thus  they  escaped  infection. 

The  master  of  the  "Gock  and  Bottle"  or  "Cock"  ale-house, 
in  Fleet  Street,  near  Temple  Bar,  in  1665,  dismissed  his 
servants,  shut  up  his  house,  and  retired  into  the  country ; 
having  advertised  farthings  belonging  to  the  said  house  to 
be  brought  in ;  and  one  of  these  farthings  is  to  this  day  ex- 
hibited by  the  present  landlord  of  the  tavern. 

A  cross  was  affixed  by  authorities  to  the  door  of  the  house 
where  there  was  infection ;  and  in  the  Guildhall  Library 
was,  a  few  years  since,  found  one  of  these  "Plague  Grosses." 
It  was  the  ordinary  size  of  a  broadside,  and  bore  a  cross 
extending  to  the  edges  of  the  paper,  on  which  were  printed 
the  words,  "Lord  have  mercy  upon  us."  In  the  four  quar- 
ters formed  by  the  limbs  of  the  cross,  were  printed  directions 
for  managing  the  patient,  regulations  for  visits,  medicines, 
food,  and  water.  This  "cross,"  unfortunately,  is  not  now 
to  be  found. 

Very  stringent  enactments  were  introduced  by  Jac.  i.  c. 
31,  a  statute  which  made  it  capital  felony  for  any  person 
having  an  infectious  sore  upon  him  uncured,  to  go  abroad 
and  converse  in  company,  after  being  commanded  by  proper 
authority  to  keep  his  house.  The  necessity,  however,  of  any 
regulations  adapted  to  an  actual  prevalence  of  this  disease 
among  us,  have  been  long  at  an  end ;  no  plague  having,  by 
the  blessing  of  Providence,  been  known  in  this  island  for 
more  than  180  years  past;  and  the  statute  of  James,  after 
remaining  for  so  long  a  period  dormant,  was,  at  length,  in 
the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  her  present  Majesty,  repealed. 

Henry  John  Stephen. 


FOUR  THIEVES'  VINEGAR 

REPORT  of  the  plague  in  1760  having  been  circu- 
lated, Messrs.  Chandler  and  Smith,  apothecaries  in 
Cheapside,  had  taken  in  a  third  partner  (Mr.  New- 
son),  and  while  the  report  prevailed,  these  gentle- 
men availed  themselves  of  the  popular  opinion,  and  placed 
in  their  windows  a  written  notice  of  "Four  Thieves'  Vine- 
gar sold  here."  Mr.  Ball,  an  old  apothecary^  passing  by, 
and  observing  this,  went  into  the  shop.  "What!"  said  he, 
"and  have  you  taken  in  another  partner?"  "No."  "Oh, 
I  beg  your  pardon,"  repHed  Ball ;  "I  thought  you  had  by  the 
ticket  in  your  window." 

William  Wadd. 


ARABS  AND  THE  PLAGUE- 

THE  Arabs  seldom  employ  medicine  for  the  plague; 
but,  though  predestinarians,  the  common  belief  in 
Europe  is  erroneous  that  supposes  they  use  no  pre- 
cautionary measures.  Burckhardt  states  that  many 
of  the  townsmen  fled  from  Medina  to  the  Desert ;  alleging 
as  an  excuse,  that  although  the  distemper  was  a  messenger 
from  heaven  sent  to  call  them  to  a  better  world,  yet,  being 
conscious  of  their  unworthiness,  and  that  they  did  not  merit 
this  special  mark  of  grace,  they  thought  it  more  advisable  to 
decline  it  for  the  present,  and  make  their  escape  from  the 
town.  The  Sembawees  have  a  superstitious  custom  of  lead- 
ing a  she-camel  through  the  town,  covered  with  feathers, 
balls,  and  all  sorts  of  ornaments;  after  which  it  is  slaugh- 
tered, and  the  flesh  thrown  to  the  dogs.  By  this  process 
they  hope  to  get  rid  of  the  malady  at  once,  as  they  imagine 
that  it  has  been  concentrated  in  the  body  of  the  devoted 
animal. 

Andrew  Crichton,  History  of  Arabia. 


T 


CAPUCHIN  RECIPE 

HE  following  curious  recipe  for  the  present  health 
of  the  body  and  eternal  salvation  of  the  soul,  is 
copied  from  a  paper  which  was  posted  on  a  door 
leading  to  the  physical  room  in  a  convent  of  Ca- 


puchin Friars  at  Messina : 

"Pro  presenti  corporis  et  ataernse  animae  salute." 

Recipe. 

Radicum  fidei 

Florum  spei 

Rosarum  charitatis 

Liliorum  puritatis 

Absynthi  contritionis 

Violarum   humilitatis 

Agarici  satisfactionis 

Ana  quantum  potes : 
Misceantur  omnia  cum  syrupe  confessionis ; 
Terentur  in  mortario  conscientiae  ; 
Solvantur  in  aqua  lachrimarum  ; 
Coquantur  in  igne  tribulationis ;  et  fiat  potus. 

Recipe  de  hoc  mane  et  sera. 

Stephen  Collet. 


THE  MANUFACTURE  OF  LOVE  CHARMS 


THE  manufacture  of  love  charms  and  philters  is  a 
practise  nearly  as  old  as  the  race.  The  mediaeval 
astrologers  found  their  principal  revenue  from  the 
sale  of  charms,  which  were  to  attract  different  eyes 
to  the  owners  of  them,  or  bring  back  to  its  allegiance  some 
errant  heart.  The  male  sex,  when  driven  to  entire  despair 
by  some  heart-whole,  flouting  she,  did  not  scruple  to  use  the 
charm  or  the  philter  as  a  last  resort ;  but  the  gentler  sex 
were  the  astrologers'  better  customers.  Perhaps  because 
men  are  naturally  more  given  to  vanity  and  more  confident 
of  their  unaided  charms,  perhaps  because  immemorial  cus- 
tom has  decreed  that  woman  must  wait  to  be  wooed,  and 
forbids  that  she  should  put  forth  her  powers  of  persuasion 
and  eloquence ;  at  all  events  women  are  to  this  day  the  chief 
users  of  charms  and  secret  devices  for  compassing  their 
ends  in  matters  of  the  heart. 

Here  is  a  love  charm  which  Is  declared  to  be  absolutely 
infallible  and  was  recommended  and  manufactured  for  years, 
and  in  great  numbers,  by  a  very  old  New  Orleans  negress, 
who  was  a  Voodou  priestess  and  who  was  said  to  be  more 
than  a  hundred  years  old.  She  was  a  native  African  and 
never  learned  to  speak  English  very  distinctly.  She  lived  by 
telling  fortunes,  the  sale  of  herbs  and  Voodou  charms,  and 
this  love  charm,  which  had  a  very  high  reputation  for  effi- 
ciency, not  only  among  her  own  people,  but  among  the 
Creoles  as  well.  It  was  made  by  catching  a  small  tree-toad, 
one  of  the  sort  that  makes  night  resonant  in  those  warm 
regions,  and  which  is  not  very  much  larger  than  the  first 
joint  of  a  man's  thumb,  provided  the  man  be  a  big  one, 
but  with  a  voice  out  of  proportion  to  its  size.  Their  backs 
are  a  smooth,  delicate  green  in  color,  without  speckles,  and 
on  the  under  side  they  are  pure,  silvery  white.    These  little 


338  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

noisy  reptiles  are  very  shy  and  difficult  to  catch,  and  it  was 
always  a  mystery  how  this  antique  darky  managed  to  secure 
them,  as  they  generally  prefer  to  sing  from  the  upper 
branches  of  the  largest  trees.  She  did  get  them,  however, 
and  compassed  their  demise  by  the  kindly  barbaric  device  of 
driving  a  large  pin  through  their  heads.  She  then  looked 
for  an  ant-hill — and  in  Louisiana  the  formicae  are  numerous 
and  voracious — near  where  she  buried  her  wretched  little 
victim,  whose  bones  were  immediately  picked  and  polished 
to  snowy  whiteness  by  the  ants.  In  the  course  of  a  day  or 
two  the  remains  were  disinterred  and  went  through  certain 
Voodou  formularies — mysterious  African  words — and  were 
passed  through  lire  upon  which  salt  was  sprinkled.  The 
charm  was  then  ready  for  use,  and  the  purchaser,  who  had 
paid  $2.50 — all  in  silver  half-dollars — for  this  treasure,  was 
then  required  to  wear  it  about  her  neck  for  seven  nights  in 
succession.  She  was  then  to  lie  in  wait  for  the  insensate 
wretch  who  had  failed  to  properly  appreciate  her  attractions 
and,  unobserved,  hook  the  little  skeleton  to  the  gentleman's 
coat  by  its  sharp,  white  claws.  He  probably  crushed  it  or 
dropped  it  very  shortly  after,  but  if  it  remained  only  a  very 
few  minutes,  five  or  six  at  most,  the  charm  was  sure  to  work, 
so  great  were  its  mysterious  powers.  The  ancient  African 
managed  to  dispose  of  some  forty  or  fifty  of  these  charms 
every  year,  and  she  was  wont  solemnly  to  assert  that  out 
of  several  hundred  cases  in  which  the  charm  was  used  but 
seven  had  entirely  failed,  and  in  those  cases  because  the 
charm  had  been  applied  in  the  dark  of  the  moon,  it  being 
necessary  that  all  love  charms  should  have  their  use  when 
the  moon  was  waning. 


THE  BENEFITS  DERIVED  FROM  ALCHEMY 

HE  pursuit  of  alchemy  is  at  an  end.  Yet  surely  to 
alchemy  this  right  is  due — that  it  may  truly  be 
compared  to  the  husbandman  whereof  ^sop  makes 
the  fable,  that  when  he  died,  told  his  sons  that  he 
had  left  unto  them  a  great  mass  of  gold  buried  underground 
in  his  vineyard,  but  did  not  remember  the  particular  place 
where  it  was  hidden ;  who  when  they  had  with  spades  turned 
up  all  the  vineyard,  gold  indeed  they  found  none ;  but  by 
reason  of  their  stirring  and  digging  the  mould  about  the 
roots  of  their  vines,  they  had  a  great  vintage  the  year  fol- 
lowing ;  so  the  painful  search  and  stir  of  alchemists  to  make 
gold,  hath  brought  to  light  a  great  number  of  good  and 
fruitful  experiments,  as  well  for  the  disclosing  of  nature  as 
the  use  of  man's  life. 

Francis  (Lord)  Bacon. 


SURGEONS 

EXEMPT  FROM  SERVING  ON  JURIES 

|T  is  a  vulgar  error  that  surgeons  are  exempt  from 
serving  as  jurymen  because  they  are  considered  to 
be   in  too  constant  a  habit  of  suppressing  their 
softer  feelings,  from  the  nature  of  their  occupa- 
tion, to  be  competent  judges  in  particular  cases. 

The  following  extract  puts  the  matter  in  the  true  light: 
"In  the  same  year  (i.  e.,  1513)  the  corporation  of  Sur- 
geons, consisting  of  twelve  (a  number  then,  as  it  appears, 
thought  equal  to  the  care  of  the  metropolis),  petitioned 
Parliament  to  be  exempted  from  bearing  arms,  or  serving 
on  juries  and  parish  offices,  and  succeeded  in  their  request." 
(Public  Acts) — Andrews's  History  of  England. 


WISEACRE— PHYSICIAN 


W 


ISEACRE,  or  rather  wise-acher:  There  is  so  jocu- 
lar a  derivation  and  explanation  of  this  word,  in 
Clef.  Way.  p.  84,  that  it  deserves  to  be  transcribed 
again,  from  the  article  Physician,  which,  he  says, 


"does  not  derive  a  ^vo-is,  natura";  which  is  too  quaint 
a  derivation,  too  much  out  of  nature,  for  the  simplicity  of 
those  ancient  times,  in  which  the  word  physician  was  used ; 
you  have  it  in  the  very  old  French  farce  of  Patelin;  wys-ake 
(or  phys-ache),  signifying  one  skilled  in  aches,  pains,  and 
distempers ;  but  still  it  is  Greek,  from  axq,  dolor,  pain ; 
so  that  physician  is  literally  a  wys-ake,  or  wise-acher,  after 
all. — Lemon's  Dictionary,  1783. 


SELLING  ONE'S  BODY 

HE  following  curious  letter  was  found  among  the 
papers  of  Mr.  Goldwyr,  a  surgeon  of  Salisbury: 

To  Mr.  Edward  Goldwyr,  at  his  House  in  the 
Close,  of  Salisbury: 
Sir: 

Being  informed  that  you  are  the  only  surgeon  in  this  city 
(or  county)  that  anatomises  men,  and  I  being  under  the 
unhappy  circumstance,  and  in  a  very  mean  condition,  would 
gladly  live  as  long  as  I  can ;  but,  by  all  appearance,  I  am  to 
be  executed  next  March,  having  no  friends  on  earth  that 
will  speak  a  word  to  save  my  life,  nor  send  me  a  morsel  of 
bread  to  keep  life  and  soul  together  until  that  fatal  day :  so, 
if  you  will  vouchsafe  to  come  hither,  I  will  gladly  sell  you 
my  body  (being  whole  and  sound),  to  be  ordered  at  your 
discretion ;  knowing  that  it  will  rise  again  at  the  general 
resurrection,  as  well  from  your  house  as  from  the  grave. 
Your  answer,  sir,  will  highly  oblige. 
Yours,  &c., 

James  Brooke. 
FIsherton- Anger  Gaol;  Oct.  3d,  1736. 


SANCTORIUS  AND  HIS  CHAIR 

ANCTORIUS  is  the  Latinized  form  of  the  name  of 
an  eminent  Italian  physician,  who  was  called  in  his 
own  language  Santorio.  He  was  born  in  1561,  at 
Capo  d'Istria,  studied  medicine  and  took  his  degree 
at  Padua,  and  then  settled  at  Venice  as  a  practitioner,  where 
he  had  considerable  success.  In  1611^  he  was  recalled  to 
Padua,  and  appointed  professor  of  the  theory  of  medicine 
in  that  university.  He  then  commenced  a  series  of  observa- 
tions on  Insensible  Perspiration,  which  have  made  his  name 
known  even  among  those  who  do  not  belong  to  the  medical 
profession.  "For  the  better  carrying  on  the  experiments," 
says  Addison,  in  the  Spectator,  No.  25,  "he  contrived  a  cer- 
tain mathematical  chair,  which  was  so  artificially  hung  upon 
springs  that  it  would  weigh  anything  as  well  as  a  pair  of 
scales.  By  this  means,  he  discovered  how  many  ounces  of 
his  food  passed  by  perspiration,  what  quantity  of  it  was 
turned  into  nourishment,  and  how  much  went  away  by 
other  channels  and  distributions  of  nature."  His  best 
known  work  contains  the  results  of  a  long  series  of  observa- 
tions made  upon  the  weight  of  his  own  body,  and  the  ex- 
ternal causes  which  induced  its  increase  or  diminution.  He 
treats  especially  of  insensible  perspiration,  on  the  due  amount 
of  which  he  makes  health  and  disease  depend.  There  is 
much  curious  and  valuable  matter  in  the  work.  He  un- 
questionably conferred  a  benefit  on  medical  science,  by  di- 
recting the  observation  of  medical  men  to  the  functions  of 
the  skin ;  but  unfortunately  the  doctrines  were  extended 
much  too  far ;  and  coinciding  with  the  mechanical  principles 
which  were  coming  into  vogue  after  the  discovery  of  the 
Circulation  of  the  Blood,  as  well  as  with  the  chemical  no- 
tions which  were  not  yet  exploded,  they  contributed  to  com- 
plete the  establishment  of  the  humoral  pathology,  under 


242  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

the  shackles  of  which  the  practise  of  medicine  continued  al- 
most to  our  own  times.  In  another  work,  Sanctorius  de- 
scribes an  instrument  he  had  invented  for  measuring  the 
force  of  the  pulse,  and  several  new  instruments  of  surgery. 
He  was  also  the  first  physician  who  attempted  to  measure 
by  the  thermometer  (then  newly  invented)  the  heat  of  the 
skin  in  different  diseases,  and  at  different  periods  of  the 
same  disease. 

John  Times,  F.  S.  A. 


'THE  CHARIOT  OF  ANTIMONY" 

\ASIL  VALENTINE,  who  lived  towards  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth  century,  published  a  singular  work, 
which  he  called  "Currus  Triumphalis  Antimenii." 
Valentine  ranks  among  the  first  who  introduced 
metallic  preparations  into  medicine ;  and  is  supposed  to  be 
the  first  that  ever  used  the  word  antimony.     In  the  above 
work,  after  setting  forth  the  chemical  preparations  of  that 
metal,  he  enumerates  their  medicinal  effects.    According  to 
the  prevailing  custom  of  the  age,  he  boasts  of  supernatural 
assistance ;  and  his  work  furnishes  a  good  specimen  of  the 
controversial  disputes  between  the  chemical  physicians,  and 
those  of  the  school  of  Galen ;  the  former  being  attached  to 
active  remedies,  and  the  latter  to  more  simple  and  inert 
remedies.     Valentine's  "Chariot  of  Antimony"  opens  with 
the  most  pious  exhortations  to  prayer  and  contemplation,  to 
charity  and  benevolence.     But  the  author  soon  forgets  him- 
self, and  breaks  out  in  this  virulent  invective :  "Ye  wretched 
and  pitiful  medicanters ;  who,  full  of  deceit,  breathe  out 
I  know  not  what !    Thrasonick  brags !  infamous  men !  more 
mad  than  Bacchanalian  fools !  who  will  neither  learn,  nor 
dirty  your  hands  with  coals !    You  titular  doctors,  who  write 
long  scrolls  of  receipts !    You  apothecaries,  who  with  your 
decoctions,  fill  pots,  no  less  than  those  in  princes'  courts,  in 
which  meat  is  boiled  for  the  sustenance  of  some  hundreds  of 
men!    You,  I  say,  who  have,  hitherto,  been  blind,  suffer  a 
collyrium  to  be  poured  into  your  eyes,  and  permit  me  to 
anoint  them  with  balsam,  that  this  ignorance  may  fall  from 
your  sight,  and  that  you  may  behold  truth,  as  in  a  clear 
glass!"     *     *     *     "But,"  says  Basil  Valentine,  after  pro- 
ceeding in  this  strain  for  some  length,  "I  will  put  an  end  to 
my  discourse;  lest  my  tears,  which  I  can  scarcely  prevent 
continually  falling  from  my  eyes,  should  blot  my  writing; 
and  whilst  I  deplore  the  blindness  of  the  world,  blemish 
the  lamentation  which  I  would  publish  to  all  men." 

John  Times,  F.  S.  A. 


s 


SCOTTISH  CHARACTERISTICS 

TRANG  mentions  an  anecdote  of  the  eminent  Dr. 
Freer,  who,  in  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  his  pro- 
fession, was  often  plunged  into  this  entire  obliv- 
iousness. Visiting  a  young  woman,  for  whom  he 
had  the  day  before  prescribed  a  large  and  severe  blister  for 
the  breast,  sitting  down  by  her  side,  feeling  the  pulse  with 
one  hand,  and  holding  his  gold  repeater  in  the  other,  he  be- 
gan to  put  the  never-varying  primary  inquiries :  "How  are 
ye  to-day?  Are  ye  any  better  or  are  ye  any  worse,  or  are 
ye  in  much  the  same  way?"  To  which  the  young  creature 
replied,  "I  canna  weel  say,  sir."  "I'm  glad  of  it,"  said  the- 
doctor,  "I'm  glad  of  it.  Did  the  blister  do?"  exclaimed  the 
physician.  "Oh,  yes,  sir ;  it  rose  very  much  indeed."  "I'm 
glad  of  it,  I'm  glad  of  it,"  said  the  doctor.  "Oh,  yes ;  and," 
continued  the  patient,  evidently  suffering  very  much  from 
her  exertion,  "it  gave  me  very  much  pain  and  great  uneasi- 
ness." "I'm  glad  of  it,  I'm  glad  of  it,"  continued  the  doc- 
tor, and  hurried  away  delighted  with  the  success  of  his  pre- 
scription, but  leaving  the  poor  patient  not  a  little  surprised 
at  the  odd  way  in  which  he  had  expressed  his  sense  of  its 
success. 

Paxton  Hood. 


ms 


"ARISTOPHANES  OF  MEDICINE" 

lOSEPH  HYRTL  was  one  of  the  most  famous  an- 
atomists and  the  most  original  teacher.  Hyrtl  was 
the  last  of  the  founders  of  the  modern  school  of 
medicine  at  Vienna,  and  his  lectures  at  the  univer- 
sity drew  students  from  every  civilized  country.  He  has 
been  called  "the  most  intellectual  man  in  Austria,"  and  it 
would  certainly  have  been  difficult,  even  in  a  country  that 
produced  a  Sapphire,  to  find  his  equal.  The  debt  which 
medicine  owes  him  is  simply  immense.  His  works  on  de- 
scriptive and  topographical  anatomy  were  epoch-making, 
and  they  were  written  in  a  way — full  of  wit  and  humor — 
which  make  them  almost  as  attractive  for  the  layman  as  for 
the  academician.  His  book,  "Text  Book  of  the  Anatomy  of 
Man,"  has  passed  through  seventeen  editions,  and  his  "Text 
Book  of  Comparative  Anatomy"  through  seven,  and  both 
have  been  translated  into  every  modern  tongue.  It  is  owing 
to  his  investigations,  too,  that  the  Vienna  Anatomical  Mu- 
seum is  to-day  the  most  famous  and  complete  of  its  kind  in 
the  world. 

Hyrtl  was  by  birth  a  Hungarian  and  first  saw  the  light  in 
1811,  in  Eisenstadt.  He  was  not  only  a  "medicine-man," 
dividing  honors  with  Rokitansky,  Oppolzer,  Skoda,  Schuh, 
and  the  other  founders  of  the  Vienna  Medical  School,  but 
he  had  a  remarkable  general  knowledge.  He  was  a  master 
of  Latin,  and  not  only  wrote  it,  but  spoke  it  without  diffi- 
culty. The  same  was  true  of  his  knowledge  of  Greek  and 
the  Oriental  tongues,  and  he  had  read  the  literature  of  every 
modern  country  in  the  original  language.  Translations  he 
abhorred.  In  his  works  the  influence  of  Oriental,  Hebraic, 
Greek,  Latin,  French,  Italian,  English,  and  German  writers 
on  particular  points  are  clearly  traced.  Nothnagl  has  rightly 
called  the  great  teacher  the  "Aristophanes  of  Medicine." 


246  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

No  professor  ever  taught  at  Vienna  who  was  more  popular 
among  the  students.  All  begged  that  he  conduct  their  final 
examinations,  or  at  least  that  he  be  present  to  see  that  jus- 
tice was  done.  Although  he  disliked  the  lazy  student  with 
all  his  heart,  he  was  always  ready  to  help  the  industrious 
ones,  and  a  candidate  who  "got  the  shivers"  on  examination 
could  always  look  to  him  for  aid  and  encouragement. 

On  one  occasion  he  was  in  the  room  when  Professor 
Langer  was  conducting  the  examination  of  an  aspirant  for 
the  medical  degree.  Langer  handed  the  student  a  small 
bone,  saying:  "Mr.  Candidate,  here  is  a  bone.  Don't  look 
at  it ;  but  tell  me  from  feeling  it  what  kind  of  a  bone  it  is ; 
whether  it  belonged  to  the  left  or  right  side  of  a  body,  and 
whether  it  was  part  of  a  man  or  woman."  The  poor  student 
blushed  from  embarrassment.  There  was  a  large  audience 
present,  and  he  saw  failure  staring  him  in  the  face.  He  cast 
a  helpless  glance  at  Hrytl,  who  moved  about  restlessly  in 
his  chair  for  a  moment  and  then  sprang  to  his  feet.  "And 
tell  me,  Mr.  Candidate,"  he  cried  out,  the  spirit  of  anger 
lighting  up  his  large  blue  eyes,  "after  answering  the  ques- 
tions of  my  dear  colleague,  the  name  of  the  original  pos- 
sessor of  this  bone,  and  where  and  in  what  street  he  lived." 
This  unexpected  outburst  saved  the  day,  but  Professor  Lan- 
ger ever  after  declined  to  conduct  an  examination  when 
Hyrtl  was  present. 

In  one  of  his  introductory  lectures,  in  a  recent  semester, 
he  addressed  his  hearers  as  follows :  "Gentlemen,  you  must 
get  possession  of  skulls.  It  is  impossible  to  study  anatomy 
unless  you  have  skulls.  Each  of  you  must  find  means,  any 
means,  to  get  a  skull."  On  the  following  morning  he  en- 
tered his  auditorium  with  a  sorrowful  face.  "Gentlemen," 
he  began,  "I  fear  some  of  you  have  misunderstood  me. 
You  certainly  have  left  no  means  untried  to  secure  skulls. 
I  noticed  that  my  handsome  collection  was  almost  depleted 
this  morning."  The  students  had  taken  him  at  his  word  and 
induced  the  servants  to  divide  out  the  skulls  of  Hyrtl,  which 
formed  one  of  the  chief  attractions  to  medical  men  in  the 
famous  teacher's  house. 


ARISTOPHANES  OF  MEDICINE  247 

A  Hebrew  aspirant  for  medical  honors,  named  Jerusalem, 
was  once  among  the  candidates  examined  by  Hyrtl.  His 
relatives  and  friends  crowded  about  the  door,  awaiting  with 
impatience  the  end  of  the  examination.  At  last  the  door 
opened,  but  instead  of  the  candidate,  Professor  Hyrtl 
emerged  from  it.  At  the  sight  of  the  crowd,  he  raised  his 
hands,  and  then,  with  all  the  seriousness  of  a  Luther,  broke 
out  in  the  words  of  Jeremiah :  "Weep,  Israel,  for  Jerusalem 
has  fallen." 

Hyrtl  was  a  great  friend  of  animals.  Some  years  ago 
Professor  Briicke  began  experiments  of  the  loss  of  weight 
in  case  of  starvation.  He  used  for  the  purpose  a  lot  of  rab- 
bits. The  animals  were  weighed  every  day,  but  to  the  as- 
tonishment and  embarrassment  of  the  professor,  they  showed 
a  gain  in  avoirdupois  every  twenty-four  hours.  The  ex- 
periments were  worthless,  of  course,  and  it  was  sometime 
before  Briicke  learned  that  Hyrtl,  seeing  the  rabbits,  took 
pity  on  them  and  used  to  steal  to  the  cage  unobserved,  feed 
them  to  their  full,  and  then  remove  every  trace  of  the  food 
on  the  floor.  Hyrtl  left  a  large  fortune,  which  is  to  go  to  the 
Perchtoldsdorf  Orphan  Asylum,  his  widow  enjoying  the  use 
of  it  to  her  death.  He  had  already  improved  the  village  and 
founded  a  school,  an  asylum  for  children,  and  an  orphan 
asylurn  in  Moedlurg.  Every  year  he  gave  a  large  amount 
of  money  to  the  poor  of  the  village.  Although  he  had  been 
decorated  with  orders  by  almost  every  sovereign  in  Europe, 
he  could  never  be  persuaded  to  wear  one.  He  dressed  so 
shabbily  that  strangers  in  Perchtoldsdorf,  meeting  him  in 
the  streets,  often  gave  him  small  pieces  of  money.  These 
he  always  accepted,  giving  them  away,  of  course,  and,  if 
possible,  learned  the  names  of  givers  to  surprise  them  with 
some  memento  of  their  kindness.  He  judged  people  by 
these  acts, 


I 


THE  REAL  SHERLOCK  HOLMES 

T  was  my  privilege  to  meet  Dr.  Joseph  Bell  at  his 
handsome  house  in  Melville  Crescent,  Edinburgh. 
Dr.  Conan  Doyle  has  made  no  secret  of  the  fact 
that  Dr.  Bell  is  the  original  of  his  famous  cre- 
ation, Sherlock  Holmes.  But  Dr.  Bell  insists  that  "Doyle's 
the  clever  man.  It's  nothing  to  do  with  me."  It  was  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  in  the  world  that  Dr.  Bell  would  sub- 
mit to  be  interviewed,  even  under  the  most  solemn  promise 
of  brevity ;  and  at  first  I  thought  I  should  have  to  return 
with  virgin  notebook.  But  the  doctor's  hatred  of  publicity 
was  outweighed  by  his  abnormal  development  of  cheery 
courtesy,  and  at  length  I  was  seated,  pencil  in  hand,  before 
the  white-haired,  keen-eyed,  ruddy-faced  man,  with  clean- 
shaven lips  and  chin,  and  black  velvet  dinner  jacket,  the 
acquaintance  and  friendship  of  whom  inspired  Dr.  Doyle  to 
write  his  fascinating  series  of  stories. 

"Can  you,"  I  proceeded^  "tell  me  of  any  instances  in  which 
your  powers  of  observation  have  been  of  service  to  the  au- 
thorities in  the  tracing  of  crime?" 

"Well,  for  twenty  years  or  more  I  have  been  engaged  in 
the  practise  of  medical  jurisprudence  on  beh^xlf  of  the  crown ; 
but  there  is  little  I  can  tell  you  about  it.  The  only  credit  I 
can  take  to  myself  is  that  appertaining  to  the  circumstance 
that  I  always  impressed  over  and  over  again  upon  all  my 
scholars — Conan  Doyle  among  them — the  vast  importance  of 
little  distinctions,  the  endless  significance  of  the  trifles.  The 
great  majority  of  people,  of  incidents,  and  of  cases  resemble 
each  other  in  the  main  and  larger  features.  For  instance, 
most  men  have  apiece  a  head,  two  arms,  a  nose,  a  mouth, 
and  a  certain  number  of  teeth.  It  is  the  little  differences,  in 
themselves  trifles,  such  as  the  droop  of  the  eyelid  or  what 
not;  which  differentiate  men." 


THE  REAL  SHERLOCK  HOLMES  249 

"Will  you  give  me  an  instance  of  the  manner  in  which 
you  note  these  all-important  trifles?" 

"This  one  struck  me  as  funny  at  the  time.  A  man  walked 
into  the  room  where  I  was  instructing  the  students,  and  his 
case  seemed  to  be  a  very  simple  one.  I  was  talking  about 
what  was  wrong  with  him.  'Of  course,  gentlemen,'  I  hap- 
pened to  say,  'he  has  been  a  soldier  in  a  Highland  regiment, 
and  probably  a  bandsman.'  I  pointed  out  the  swagger  in  his 
walk,  suggestive  of  the  piper;  while  his  shortness  told  me 
that  if  he  had  been  a  soldier  it  was  probably  as  a  bandsman. 
In  fact,  he  had  the  whole  appearance  of  a  man  in  one  of  the 
Highland  regiments.  The  man  turned  out  to  be  nothing  but 
a  shoemaker,  and  said  he  had  never  been  in  the  army  in  his 
life.  This  was  rather  a  floorer ;  but  being  absolutely  certain 
I  was  right,  and  seeing  that  something  was  up,  I  did  a  pretty 
cool  thing.  I  told  two  of  the  strongest  clerks,  or  dressers,  to 
remove  the  man  to  a  side  room,  and  to  detain  him  till  I 
came.  I  went  and  had  him  stripped — and  I  daresay  your 
own  acuteness  has  told  you  the  sequel." 

"You  have  given  me  credit  for  that  which  I  don't  possess, 
I  assure  you." 

"Why,  under  the  left  breast  I  instantly  detected  a  little 
blue  'D'  branded  on  his  skin.  He  was  a  deserter.  That  was 
how  they  used  to  mark  them  in  the  Crimean  days,  and  later, 
although  it  is  not  permitted  now.  Of  course,  the  reason 
of  his  evasion  was  at  once  clear." 

"Did  you  have  any  prevision  about  the  literary  celebrity 
of  Conan  Doyle  while  he  was  yet  your  pupil  ?" 

"I  did  not  know  he  was  coming  out  as  a  literary  charac- 
ter, but  I  always  regarded  him  as  one  of  the  best  students 
I  ever  had.  He  was  exceedingly  interested  always  upon 
anything  connected  with  diagnosis,  and  was  never  tired  of 
trying  to  discover  all  those  little  details  which  one  looks 
for.  I  recollect  he  was  amused  once  when  a  patient  walked 
in  and  sat  down.  'Good  morning,  Pat,'  I  said,  for  it  was 
impossible  not  to  see  that  he  was  an  Irishman.  'Good  morn- 
ing, your  honer,'  replied  the  patient.  'Did  you  like  your 
walk  over  the  links  to-day,  as  you  came  in  from  the  south 


250  DOCTORS  OF  THE  OLD  SCHOOL 

side  of  the  town?'  I  asked.  'Yes,'  said  Pat;  'did  your 
honor  see  me?'  Well,  Conan  Doyle  could  not  see  how  I 
knew  that,  absurdly  simple  as  it  was.  On  a  showery  day, 
such  as  that  had  been,  the  reddish  clay  at  bare  parts  of  the 
links  adheres  to  a  boot,  and  a  tiny  part  is  bound  to  remain. 
There  is  no  such  clay  anywhere  else  round  the  town  for 
miles.  Well,  that  and  one  or  two  similar  instances  excited 
Doyle's  keenest  interest,  and  set  him  experimenting  himself 
in  the  same  direction — which,  of  course,  was  just  what  I 
wanted." 

"What  is  your  exact  connection  with  the  crown  ?" 
"I  must  explain  that  Dr.  Littlejohn  is  the  medical  ad- 
viser, and  he  likes  to  have  a  second  man  with  him.  He  is  a 
very  intimate  friend  of  mine,  and  it  so  happens  that  for 
more  than  twenty  years  we  have  done  a  great  deal  together, 
and  it  has  come  to  be  the  regular  thing  for  him  to  take  me 
into  cases  with  him.  But  I  have  no  official  connection  with 
the  crown.  With  regard  to  the  doctors,  I  think  every  good 
teacher,  if  he  is  to  make  his  men  good  doctors,  must  get 
them  to  cultivate  the  habit  of  noticing  the  little  apparent 
trifles.  Any  really  good  doctor  ought  to  be  able  to  tell,  be- 
fore a  patient  has  fairly  sat  down,  a  good  deal  of  what  is 
the  matter  with  him  or  her.  With  a  woman,  especially,  the 
observant  doctor  can  often  tell,  by  noticing  her,  exactly  what 
part  of  her  body  she  is  going  to  talk  about." 

"Have  you  had  at  all  an  eventful  life  yourself?" 
"No;  I  studied  here  in  the  university,  took  my  degree 
at  twenty-two,  was  for  two  years  assistant  demonstrator  of 
anatomy  in  the  Edinburgh  university,  signed  as  house  sur- 
geon at  the  Royal  infirmary  of  this  city,  and  have  been  there 
ever  since,  having  been  senior  surgeon  for  many  years,  and 
being  now  consulting  surgeon.  I  should  like  to  say  this 
about  my  friend  Doyle's  stories,  that  I  believe  they  have 
inculcated  in  the  general  public  a  new  source  of  interest. 
They  make  many  a  fellow  who  has  before  felt  very  little 
interest  in  his  life  and  daily  surroundings  think  that,  after 
all,  there  may  be  much  more  in  life  if  he  keeps  his  eyes 


THE  REAL  SHERLOCK  HOLMES  251 

Open  than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of  in  his  philosophy.  There 
is  a  problem,  a  whole  game  of  chess,  in  many  a  little  street 
incident  or  trifling  occurrence,  if  one  once  learns  the  moves." 

The  End. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


tf 


JUN'4    1967 


f^c. 


lwhm%m-^m^'-r^,^.^'^. 


